IAFB Australia Incorporated

It is too common for us to be easily annoyed when things that surround us are not what we expect to see, hear, experience, and the like. When our family and loved ones are getting into addictions, when our work colleagues adds cause you more pressure and stress, when your community are not improving rather getting worse, and many more. We wish that it is better if they are not around or exist.  Paul in his encouragement to us in 1 Thessalonians 5:12-15 not to look at the weaknesses of the people around us. He says "12 Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who labour among you and preside over you in the Lord and admonish you,13 and to esteem them most highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. 14 And we urge you, brothers and sisters, admonish the undisciplined, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient toward all. 15 See that no one pays back evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good for one another and for a

"Do you think it’s right?" When I was asked with this similar question, I feel obliged to provide a qualified answer acceptable to the person who asked this. Not only that, I also have to carry the burden of the real story behind this simple query. The question has options to be answered in many ways such as political, legal, moral, spiritual, etc. It will depend on how I perceived it based from whom it originates from. As a servant of the Living God, I need to consider an answer which mostly morally and spiritually right and not only the legally acceptable. There are many political rules, laws, rights in many parts of the world that seems wrong a few years back but now legislatively right. There are norms and cultures that are previously detestable but now socially tolerable because it adapts according to the trend in our current generation which now are politically right. In Philippians 2:1-2, Apostle Paul says “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being unit

When we were young, we were brought up by our parents to what they want us to be. Usually they groomed us to be the person whom they admired and hoped to become but didn't happen. They wanted us to continue the dreams they did not achieved. But I know that other parents wanted to bring out the best from their children and allow them to choose the path they want to take. Whether we like it or not, our success and failure are a product of how our parents guided and influenced us. It has no difference to what God's desire for us, his children. He surely desire to let us find our true selves whom God plan us to be. But most of the time, we want to be of someone else rather than simply be ourselves. There is no wrong in this attitude, if and only if this desire is also aligned to our capabilities, skills, characters, and God's will and purpose in our lives. Like our biological parents, God is so glad to see his children succeeding in their lives and to all the aspects of it. B

Getting lost is a difficult situation. You are exerting all efforts to figure out how did you get there, and worse, how will you get over it? We started to worry, panic, and fear especially if no one to give you some help. Are we in this situation now? Are we in a position that we have tried our very best to resolve things but we still found ourselves to nowhere? Where are we heading? Our lives are like a boat and we ride to it. We go to a journey that mostly relies simply to ourselves and serve to be the captain of it as we sail through the sea. But the trip is not always safe and smooth. Strong winds challenge us, the sea currents defy us, and sometimes even the lightning strikes us. We encounter troubles, storms, and even disasters as we go along. In John 6:16-21, the apostles sailed through the night and they seem lost as they are occupied with worries because of the storms shaking their boats and filling them with water. Then Peter saw Jesus walking on the water from a distance an