2. I. The situation in the world today
There is serious disorder in the world today.
There is war
There is poverty
There is murder
There is social injustice
3. On a personal level, there is loneliness,
depression, fear, insecurity, mistrust, etc.
4. Everyone agrees that something major is
needed to correct the situation in the world.
a. Man has made various efforts to improve
the world, but their efforts are not
succeeding because these are not
based on God’s wisdom.
5. For example:
In the field of medicine, through the ultrasound
technique, we can discover the sex of a child before it
is born. But some people use this technology to
decide to kill the unborn child if found defective, or if
it is not the desired sex
In food production, we have learned better and
more productive ways of increasing the yield of the
land. But millions of people are still dying of
malnutrition and starvation.
6. •Some even propose solutions through man made
religions and other ideologies. Examples:
Marxism, and New Age.
Man is not succeeding because all these efforts
are based on man's wisdom.
7. Isaiah 55:8-9
8 “For my thoughts are not
your thoughts, neither are
your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
9 “As the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my
ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your
thoughts.
What is really needed is God’s wisdom and ways
8. II. What is the way of God?
Does God have a Plan for bringing us out of our
confusion and disorder?
Genesis 1:31 - What God
creates is good.
31 God saw all that he had
made, and it was very good. And
there was evening, and there was
morning—the sixth day.
9. Genesis 1:27
God created man in His
image.
27 So God created mankind in
his own image, in the image
of God he created them; male
and female he created them.
10. Genesis 3:8-9
Man is meant for friendship
with God.
8 Then the man and his wife
heard the sound of the LORD God
as he was walking in the garden
in the cool of the day, and they
hid from the LORD God among
the trees of the garden.9 But
the LORD God called to the man,
“Where are you?”
11. However, things
did not turn out
according to God's
plan. Original sin
entered the
picture. And from
then on, man
continued to turn
against God and
His ways.
12. But still, even if God punished man, God
did not abandon him.
1. God punished Adam and Eve
when they sinned, yet God extended to
them a gesture of grace: He gave them
clothing (Genesis 3:21) and even
promised that the offspring of the
woman will crush the head of the
serpent (Genesis 3:15).
2. God punished Cain for murdering
his brother Abel, yet He gave Cain a
mark to protect him from being
killed on sight (Genesis 4:15).
13. God is neither indifferent
nor distant. God is
someone who loves us
and is interested in
having a personal
relationship with us. He
is interested in the
details of our daily lives.
14. Isaiah 48:17
17 This is what the LORD says—
your Redeemer, the Holy
One of Israel:
“I am the LORD your God,
who teaches you what is best
for you,
who directs you in the
way you should go.
15. Jeremiah 29:11
11 For I know the
plans I have for you,”
declares the LORD,
“plans to prosper you
and not to harm you,
plans to give you
hope and a future.
16. In fact, God wants to bring us all back
to Himself, to restore our
fellowship and intimacy with him.
Ephesians 1:9-10.
9 He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good
pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the
times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven
and on earth under Christ.
17. III. How can God's plan happen?
Again, we need to turn
to God's wisdom. We
need God's point of view.
What does God say
about life's realities?
God's love and His plan for me
18. The Bible tells us about the reality of
Satan.
Ephesians 6:12.
12 For our struggle is not against flesh
and blood, but against the rulers,
against the authorities, against the
powers of this dark world and against
the spiritual forces of evil in the
heavenly realms.
19. We are not just confronted with particular wrongs in society or
in ourselves. Behind all these is something bigger. Satan is
orchestrating these evils.
On our own, we cannot overcome the challenges in our
Christian life.
God also says that
our human
efforts apart
from Him will
prove useless.
John 15:5.
20. So what is the solution?
1. Christ is the answer!
a. He is a spiritual being more
powerful than Satan.
a. He is the vine from which we
draw life, strength and power.
21. In fact, Christ is the
fullness of God's love.
John 3:16.
Thus, in Jesus we
experience the love of
God.
And in Jesus, God's plan
for restoration can
begin to happen.
22. 9 If you
declare with your
mouth, “Jesus is
Lord,” and
believe in your
heart that God
raised him from
the dead, you will
be saved.
IV. What do we need to do?
We need to simply accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Romans 10:9.
23. 1. What this means will become
clearer as we move on in this
CLP.
But for now, what is
important to know is simply
this:
a. God loves us
b. God sent Jesus His own Son
c. In Jesus we are saved and restored to our relationship
with God, with the fullness of life He intended
So God has done His part. It is now our move.
24. The choice is given to each of you.
Will you continue to investigate how God's plan can
work in your life? Will you continue to explore, along
with us, how God's love can make a difference in your
life?
Or will you just walk away
like the disciples who left
Jesus?
25. I hope that just like
Simon Peter you will say:
"Lord, to whom shall we
go? You have the words
of eternal life" (John
6:68).
Life God's Love Story.flv
26. The Challenge
God has loved you with an eternal love. The ultimate
manifestation of this love was sending God's own Son
to suffer and die for you. Will you open your heart to
receive the fullness of His love?
Will you open your mind to explore the richness of
God's plan for you through the rest of the Christian
Life Program?
Notas do Editor
1. Covered with a blanket, a homeless man sleeps along a Hollywood sidewalk in California. (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)
Social injustice is a concept that refers to an unfairness in a society that is based on inequalities. These may or may not be legal wrong, but more of a moral wrong. These types of injustices occur when the society doesn’t have an equal distribution of advantages and disadvantages. Some of the causes most often seen in social injustice are the unequal distribution of wealth, racism, ageism, and sexism. An example to give of a widespread social injustice would be denying females equal opportunity in the workplace due to thinking they are inferior to men.
Number of hungry people in the world
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that nearly 870 million people of the 7.1 billion people in the world, or one in eight, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012. Almost all the hungry people, 852 million, live in developing countries, representing 15 percent of the population of developing counties. There are 16 million people undernourished in developed countries (FAO 2012).
The number of undernourished people decreased nearly 30 percent in Asia and the Pacific, from 739 million to 563 million, largely due to socio-economic progress in many countries in the region. The prevalence of undernourishment in the region decreased from 23.7 percent to 13.9 percent.
Latin America and the Caribbean also made progress, falling from 65 million hungry in 1990-1992 to 49 million in 2010-2012, while the prevalence of undernourishment dipped from 14.6 percent to 8.3 percent. But the rate of progress has slowed recently.
The number of hungry grew in Africa over the period, from 175 million to 239 million, with nearly 20 million added in the last few years. Nearly one in four are hungry. And in sub-Saharan Africa, the modest progress achieved in recent years up to 2007 was reversed, with hunger rising 2 percent per year since then.
Developed regions also saw the number of hungry rise, from 13 million in 2004-2006 to 16 million in 2010-2012, reversing a steady decrease in previous years from 20 million in 1990-1992 (FAO 2012).
The above is based on the new estimates of world hunger by the FAO using revised procedures. It is worth noting that the new estimates give a different answer than the old estimates as the graph below shows (Lappe, 2013).
Away home
Not promoted
Broke up
Insecure of capabilities/ lack of confidence
Well, Karl Marx, the father of communism summed up communism in 1 sentence. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
The political and economic philosophy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in which the concept of class struggle plays a central role in understanding society's allegedly inevitable development from bourgeois oppression under capitalism to a socialist and ultimately classless society.
888
Unlike many religions like Islam or Buddhism, the New Age Movement does not trace its roots back to a human founder. It is actually a diverse blend of ancient religions like…
• Hinduism• Buddhism• Taoism• Gnosticism• The occult
So, despite its title, the New Age Movement is not new.
The title “New Age” has been around for more than sixty years and was first popularized by a woman named Alice Bayley (1880-1949).
The New Age Movement and its beliefs were widely introduced to thousands of young people in the U.S., England, and Europe in the 1960’s. It was then, during the sixties, that a band known as "The Beatles" were influenced by a Hindu spiritual guru by the name of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. They appeared with Maharishi on the news, at Transcendental Meditation conferences, seminars and lectures and went to India to spend time with him in the late sixties. From then on, there was a surge of interest in the West in:
• meditation• yoga• and eastern philosophy
That interest continues to this day. The New Age Movement has made great inroads all across North America. Surveys show that millions of Americans have adopted New Age beliefs.
• 25% say they believe in reincarnation• 42% say they believe they have been in contact with someone who has died• 15% endorse the work of spirit mediums or channelers• 67% read astrology columns• 50% believe in ESP (extrasensory perception)
[Statistics above are cited in: So What’s the Difference? by Fritz Ridenour; They Can’t All Be Right by Steve Russo, p. 67; and a 2009 Pew Forum survey]
One of the persons who is fueling the ongoing growth of the New Age worldview is a man by the name of Deepak Chopra. Deepak an alternative medicine guru, a spiritual counselor, a number one selling author, and a huge hit in North America. Time Magazine said, “Deepak Chopra is one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.” [Time, June, 1999].
His list of friends and admirers runs from Hollywood movie stars to the Dalai Lama. Chopra's 65 books have sold millions of copies in English alone and have been translated into more than 30 languages. His overall yearly profit, according to Time magazine exceeds $15 million. ["New Age Supersage," Time Magazine, Nov. 2008]
Some of his books include The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success and How to Know God. He’s very popular and unfortunately leading multitudes into a New Age view of God and reality.
Now, unlike many religions, the New Age Movement has no:
• sacred text• central organization• membership• formal clergy• geographic center or headquarters• official website• or creeds
The New Age Movement is sort of a free-flowing spiritual movement, made up of believers and practitioners who share somewhat similar beliefs and practices, which many just add on to their previously held religious beliefs.
Seminars, conventions, magazines, books and informal groups replace the use of sermons and religious services.
So, that’s a bit of an overview of what the New Age Movement is. Next, let’s consider what New Agers believe. Of course, there are a variety of beliefs within the movement, but generally, most people who would consider themselves part of this movement hold to eight common beliefs.