I see that joy is the strength. I need it. If I stress myself too much I will either get sick or seek after things that destress me but not healthy for me. I had conditioned myself to de-stress myself with addictions, and associate work with fears and stress.

I have to consciously relax and it will help me focus more. When there is room, joy and success can enter it.

If we are faithful with small thing, then God will give me bigger thing too. If we cannot be happy when we have 1 friend, then how can God give us more friends?
If we are not happy with one task, then how can God entrust us with more opportunities?

I find that I have to protect my restful day. I have to consciously keep away from negative thoughts and stresses.

I can’t avoid time-wasters if I try to multi-task so much. The stress of that will cause me to look for distractions here and there.

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It reminds me to use humor and smile to unstress stressful situation and attract females.

Good humor will find me new opportunities, and great smiles too.

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Do not be anxious about anything. Be loving to yourself and others. For me, I work primarily with the mind. I want to fill it with loving thoughts.

I will have to take step, instead of trying to finish everything at once. I realize I do need break. I want to know why people like John Wesley can focus for weeks at a time, but they do get sick too. Maybe they have their success as motivators, and the thrills keep them going. For me, I don’t have much success so I have to endure alone, with God perhaps.

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Loving thoughts are not abusive. They believe in the best, are hopeful, and they believe.

One abusive thought, and it will lead to chaos of the mind and heart. It unbalances the emotions and focus.

To have pure focus, loving thoughts are important.

When I study, I found out a lot of abusive thoughts pattern. It leads to waste time. When I become willing to love myself, I start to become more productive and energetic.

Love gives me more energy. It protects me from mood swings, and preserve energy.

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Incomeless: My future is fluid. It’s extremely flexible I can go anywhere and do anything I want.

Churchless: I can build the Lord’s church with 100% freedom. It’s going to become what God wants it to become.

Friends: I have a lot of friends who are willing to help me find a job, though they don’t always agree with me nor do they always make me feel good.

Love: People do love me in their own way.

Rejection: I become better and better at rejection. I no longer feel as bad. Now I can see it as changing people around me and changing my presentation. Spaghatti that remains on the wall will remain on the wall. I don’t have to sweat over it. Good friends come and go, best people stay.

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I have always been quite content with being whom I am. The fact that I have never dated around makes me feel more positive, because I thanked God for keeping me pure.

I live in Canada as a Chinese Canadian, but I never had major identity crises. I was upset before for not speaking perfect English because a girl I admired was a Canadian Asian who spoke perfect English, but overall I was okay with being myself.

This time, the episode with the neighborhood girl and the police caused me to feel self-conscious about my age and ethnicity. Age bothers me much more than me being Chinese. I know Asian guy is quite popular too, but the North American (U.S.  and Canadian) seems to be very resistant to a bigger age difference. There are quite a few negative labels. I didn’t care much before, because I looked young for my age, but this time I cared.

Then New Year Eve came. I was still quite affected by the issue, and visited forums and websites with asian-and-white interracial dating themes to look for some hopes. I hoped I was still in the age range that could be accepted by attractive, young white women. I never had an interest in a white woman before until recently. I found that they could be sweet and traditional too, and mixed children looked really cute, so I kind of picture what it was like to have “white” kids after I marry.

By the way, I was taking a walk in the mall and ran into my friends, a white-husband-Chinese-wife couple, whom I knew in University before they got married. Maybe God was trying to tell me something? A comfort of some sort?

But the issue I am facing here is age, so…

Tonight I drove around after the hotpot. I also had replied to some craiglist ads from white ladies who are looking for men to date in NYE. I wrote I wasn’t going to date them, but just wanted to talk. I wanted to know what they thought about my age and appearance. It was probably a dangerous move. There were many possibilities. An obvious possibility is sexual temptation. A lot of the women were looking for white guys and stated it in the ads. Some younger women were looking for guys who were their ages, so it only made me more uncomfortable, knowing that I was outside of their age range.

I missed my youth.

As I drove around, I kept quoting God’s word. Then I felt that my peace and strength were coming back. I felt like the usual me again. I was able to envision what my ministry was heading, that the New Testament Churches are going to be built, and God will attract a lot of people from different background, ages, and race through me and my team as we build the Lord’s churches. It was encouraging.

I really shouldn’t be self-conscious about my age and enthicity. As I age, I will age gracefully and slowly, because I know that I am spiritual and I live on the supernatural plane. God will renew my youth and I will defy aging. If I have faith, it will keep being that way. If I doubt, I will indeed get old faster.

My future wife is still out there waiting. I have been praying for her since age 10. I don’t think my future disciples will find me repulsive because I am older. I believe that as I mature I will be like old wine, which taste better. The older I get the more glory! So what if my future partner meet cross my path as a teenage girl?

I did’t bend on getting a young girl. It just happened to be a young, white lady that I became interested in.

This NYE was quite a learning experience. God taught me how it feel to be lonely on NYE. There are many lonely people who are suffering. A NYE is a good time to reach out to them and give them the love they need. It is the time to heal the sick, to give to the poor, to hug the lonely, and other godly things.

My Past Depression

Depression used to be my torturer.

This event reminded me of my old depression. In fact, the familiar voice of depression was trying to talk in my head again. The word of God dissipated its voice this time, again. It was so effective, just like it has always been.

Depression tried to make me feel self-pity and regret. It tried to tell me how many attractive girls I have failed to notice, and opportunties they gave me that I missed. It was trying to tell me that my youth has been passing me by and I would never get it back again.

I remembered how my depression said things that upset me in 2002 when the girl I had admired for so long finally met a new boyfriend. Since then depression had been following me, using different events and episode to keep me depressed. The cycles reinforced themselves. The more I depressed, the more I was made weak. The more I was weak, the more opportunities I missed or failed to notice. The more I failed, the more I depressed.

I remembered how in 2006 I finally recognized my vicious, self-feeding, ever-growing, depressive pattern after a tip-off from God, and decided to repent of my depressive thinking, and then started to listen to God’s word exclusively. It healed my depression.

If I wasn’t so depressed, so self-pitying, so doubtful, and so vocal about my depressing thoughts, I would have been 10 times more successful and happy overall. My career would have took off much earlier and maybe I am already with the best girl by now.

But I knew it was unrealistic to think that way, because the lessons I had learned over the years were so complicated, so hard, so subtle, so mult-layered that I would never had guessed what they were 10 years ago. I would never had recognized the lessons I needed to learn from scratch. It really took time and real life lessons to internalize them.

The main lesson I learned was faith. How would I ever guessed that the institutional churches had never really taught me what faith really was and how it actually worked?

See, I am speaking hopes here. I have ministry to look forward to. I can envision people gather together as a real, biblical church. I have hopes that people are going to change.

In Hell, there are no hopes. The damned is forever hopeless. It gave us all the more reason to cherish the hopes we have on earth, although it is full of hurt, loneliness, and suffering. Don’t be depressed. It lied to you and would tell you to commit suicide, but in Hell there will only be thousand times of suffering and hopelessness we have on earth.

Let’s be joyful, thankful, and hopeful for the gift of life and look forward to a victorious New Year. God Bless!

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Romans 4:17 (king James)

(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, [even] God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.

New American Standard Bible Version:
(as it is written, “A FATHER OF MANY NATIONS HAVE I MADE YOU”) in the presence of Him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.

There are times when you have to walk alone. Those moments can be cloudy and uncertain. You can still be sure of one thing, that is, God’s words is always true. Maybe you are not seeing the church you need. Maybe you don’t have any reliable colleague to fight along with. Maybe the godly desires you are yearning are not in sights even though you have spent years waiting. You can still count on what God said.

When your faith reaches a certain level, you know that the colleagues you need are out there. They already existed and are scheduled to arrive if you continue to believe. The church you need is manifesting. The spouse that you desire is warped for you. All the desires that God has made provisions for in His words are yours to claim if you really believe.

Today I took a 3 hour long walk in my neighborhood, alone. After all these times and since the last post, I remained alone. The church that I am building is still tiny. Things didn’t seem to change a lot since my last entry. The Internet marketing business is still in the humble state, making dismal amount of money. However, I knew what God has promised, and I was not going to contradict His words with my thought and words.

My faith was indeed like a mustard seed. It began so little. The results of my faith are still pretty unnoticeable if not carefully scrutinized. Nothing that I have done so far in life turned out to be substantial, and the buddy that I counted on really showed me once again how feeble humans are. I was let down big time.

I decided not to stay down. God’s word began to flow through me. One Bible verse after another was flashing through my head. The one that grasped my attention the most was Romans 4:17. The things I wanted to see were simply not there as I was walking alone this afternoon, but I was rest assured that they were as good as real, because God already had promised them and what He had promised He was also able to perform (Romans 4:21)

I felt that my faith had never been so to the point and biblical. For too long, I had let myself drowned in trouble water and spoke my mind and feeling instead of God’s word. Now I felt so refreshed and peaceful as I was able to use the accurate Bible verses at the exact moments that call for them.

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Did God not care about my success? Satan wants us to think that way.

Tonight I am studying an exam. Every practice question was painful to go through.

I am going to be a math teacher.

Maybe God wants me to understand something here. Maybe He is trying to show me that there is spiritual warfare behind each tiny step toward my calling in life?

It was so painful.

9 years of financial and career failures: unemployment, incomeless, and debt. Why? It’s mystery. Mystery is such a burden. (Ecc 1:13)

I “am” miserable. Misery makes me distracted and addicted to sinful pleasure to medicate myself.

Then God brought me to rememberance of some of my past sin: When I was in the internship program in my Uni year I “cursed” a potential employer because he showed up late. I “cursed” professor of a statistic class because I couldn’t understand what she was saying.

Then I failed the internship program, and later my GPA, especially for the statistic courses, never went higher than 70 in my whole University years. I barely got my honor degree.

I reaped the fruits of my mouth.

Proverbs 18:20

²⁰A man’s belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled.

Psalm 34:12-16

¹²What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good?

¹³Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile.

¹⁴Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.

¹⁵The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.

¹⁶The face of the LORD is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.

The pains I was going through tonight caused suicidal thoughts to resurface.

It’s all good. I am repenting of my past sins here. Just some old baggage to deal with.

Relevant Read:

Idle Word Loses Life

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Here are some of the demonic strongholds (Lies from demons) I have witnessed in common church setting. I also generalized some discussions I had with certain pastors over the years to sum things up: (I reply in green. If I enclose the green with * *, that means I didn’t really say it out loud. It was in my head. If there is no* but just green, I did say it out loud)

1 Hearing God’s Voice is for special people, or the deceived people.

2 You can’t understand the Bible without going through our approved seminaries, and if you happen to know the Bible very well, you are either Pharisees or you think too much. A lay Christian shouldn’t know his Bible unless he wants to show off.

3 Don’t ask for the gift of Tongue, it’s dangerous.

4 If you sin but you don’t repent, then you are not a Christian to begin with. But you can’t lose your salvation if you are really saved! Pastor, what if I sin and not repent? You can’t!! *So I can sin but I cannot refuse to repent? Why doesn’t God work me the other way around so I can’t sin but can repent?*

5 Go see a psychiatrist if you have any sign of mental problem. Don’t come to me! Thinking too much about bible prophecies is a sign of mental problem. A normal Christian won’t think about anything in the Bible as much as you. They don’t ask these question! You must have a problem.

6 Your parents’ sin, generational curses (What!?), or verbal curse don’t affect you in any way

7 If you believe otherwise on #6, then you are deceived by the Pentecostal.

8 No one ask for help to cast out demons in this church, so there are no demons in our church. *Who are going to ask for help if you will either label us as being deceived by the Pentecostal or send us to the doctor?*

9 If you tell me a Christian is demonized (demons live in him), then he must be weak in faith. But since no one ask for help, no one has demon in this church. *So no one in your church is weak in faith in your church then? All elites, wohoo! But how come I don’t see anyone moving the mountain or healing any disease in your church if everyone is strong in faith?*

10 Re:#4, but pastor! I know so and so, they did this and this but they don’t repent. Pastor: They are not Christians to begin with! Pastor, more than 90% of Christian brother watch porn… and more than half the church sin and not repent. Rationalization and refusal to repent are so common! I don’t know about this. No one told me that.

11. If you belong to a church fellowship group, attend every Sunday service and Sunday school, then you are doing fine. But pastor, like I said in #10, 90% of brothers watch porn or many sin without repentant even though they did the whole nine yards you told them to Pastor: They are not real Christian then. But they believe the Bible cover to cover! It’s just head knowledge!! Head knowledge doesn’t make a person a real Christian!!

12 Re:#11 I did all you have taught me to do, but I still struggle with this, this, and that sins. What’s my problem? My buddies sin too but some of them don’t repent for a long time. Pastor: Doing good works doesn’t mean you guys are real Christians!! All you have are just head knowledge, not genuine experience with God! *I guess I am going to be labeled as a false Christian if I keep asking…*

13: Re: #12 But why do I still struggle with sins after I repent? What if I can’t stop myself and one day fall into a heavier sin? Pastor: A mature person won’t ask that question!

14 The more money you have the more sorrowful you will become. But the Old Testament says God loves to bless us with prosperity! Pastor: Old Testament is in the past. We are in the New Testament era.

15 God doesn’t guarantee your Christian life will be dandy, rich, peaceful, successful… But Pastor, my life sucks too much, walking around poor and fail everything, *something must be wrong with our teaching* The Bible never guarantee your life will be happy and easy!!! But Pastor, the Old Testament says… (back to #14)

16 If it’s God will, brother Ken’s will recover from cancer. But brother, what’s God’s will? Typical Christian: Who am I to say?

17 If you don’t devote your entire days to do job search *randomly like God has nothing to say about your career* just like everyone does, but take time to pray and seek God’s will for your job and wait for Him to speak before you take any job, then you are lazy. God doesn’t talk to His people which job to take, it’s too small for Him. *Go back to #1*

18 Stop talking about the Bible so much and asking pointy questions about it, don’t talk to people about these things, otherwise you can’t bring them to the church because they would think you are weird. Talk about “casual” things instead.

19 Christians are supposed to be poor and lowly. Get a 9-5 jobs so you can fit in with our church. 90% of our church members are 9-5 employees, who are you to think that you are called to start a business? Don’t be too ambitious and conceited! *Update: Now that I think of #11, maybe 90% of our church members aren’t even Christians!* Don’t forget that “I told you so”, your so called entrepreneurial projects will fail in two years and you will get stuck at where you are now. See what happen after 2 years at #34

20 Don’t mention demons. Why ALWAYS [loud] talk about demons? You are worshiping Satan if you talk about him SO MUCH! Just talk about Jesus!

21 This is the New testament era. The Old Testament was past and it was so difficult to read. Let’s just stick with the New Testament in our Bible Study.

22 The Old Testament was in the past. The Four Gospels were before Jesus’ crucifixion, and Revelation is about the future, so let just focus on the New Testament books that remain.

23 Don’t talk about the Bible too much in the church, it’s too heavy for lay Christians. Let’s balance our prayers and Bible studies with fun activities.

24. Re#5 But pastor, I thought we are supposed to pray and read the Bible to find out the cure from God if we have any problem with our mental health? It has nothing to do with prayers. Don’t talk to your therapists about the Bible.

25. Idols, statues, charm, and occult objects of any kind cannot affect you in any way. We are Christians. We can put any object in our home, even if it has spell on it. Go watch any horror movies if you want, The Exorcist, Harry Potter, whatever. They have no ill effect on us! *But Pastor! Some people saw real demons and real occult magic in these things? If they have no ill effect, why would Satan put these real evil messages in them? Stop talking about Satan! You are worshiping demons if you talk about him too much!! *Back to #20

26. Re:#4 But pastor, like I told you in #15 I walk around poor, I just don’t have money to see doctor, therapists, and psychiatrists. Pastor: …

27. Regular fasting is legalistic. It hurts your body. Regular fasting is just good work, it might not help you spiritually. So what helps? I did everything you told me but still struggle with sins. Pastor: … [Repeat what he says in #11, 12, 28, 29]

28. Don’t talk to me about the problem of porn or MASTURBATION! [I used a tiny voice when I say "masturbation", but he increased his volume when he mentioned the word "masturbation" even though some Christians sisters are chatting next door "SO YOU MASTURBATE?" thanks Pastor!] Don’t you know it’s wrong to walk around and ask EVERYONE question like this? *But Pastor, when did I ask EVERYONE this question? I was asking you*

29. You sin because you choose to sin. Addiction is an illusion, an excuse!

30. Re: #3 If people in this church have gift of tongue, fine, but don’t use it in church meeting because it would disrupt others. No one know what they talk about if they speak in tongue. *Can’t we design some programs and meeting that allow people to pray in tongue? Why should we restrain the gift of God to accommodate the tradition of men? Why don’t we seek gift of Interpretation so we can interpret the tongue? Won’t they disrupt others if they pray in tongue at home* [Too bad I didn't think of this rebuttal at the time]

31 People won’t read your Christian blog, because you are not a certified, approved-seminary trained pastor! See #2 But pastor, I got 2000 visitor per month and it’s only beginning. People don’t care who you are as long as what you write is good. Pastor: …

32 Stop writing journal about your walk with God, it only make you think even more (See #5), go see a doctor instead and don’t forget #24. You have already mentioned prophecy, salvation, church living, demons, and the whole nine yards in such a short meeting with me. All you talk about is pointy question. People would think you are weird.  See? you have a problem. (Go to #18)

33 Re:#26 You walk around poor because you lack focus. You think about the whole nine yards in #32 too much that you fail to land and keep a good job!!!

34 Pastor! 2 years ago you said that all my entrepreneurial projects will fail. They failed! What do you think? *Now I had failed to make 1 cent from most of them. Only one project made me $3.17 and I can’t even cash it in. Even my younger brother did much better than that, I guess it’s because he doesn’t have a pastor who cursed him with Pastoral authority. He doesn’t go to church. Curses are real! (See #6)*  Pastor: [sheepishly, with a "gentle, kind, typical pastor look" expression on his face] Give it another try! Me: …

35. Re# 27 Since I can’t find the answers from you in #11, 12, 27, 28, 29, I went out and read such and such books. I sensed that the Holy Spirit was leading me to read those books. What do you think about their teaching? You are doing too much that you confused yourself… [repeating #32]…and remember head knowledge doesn’t help you! [repeating #12]… but if you do the list on #11 within our church you will be fine… those books you read were written by famous preachers… On the judgment day you will see many nameless pastors, evangelists, and ministers who will get their rewards in heaven.. *So that means you are one of those nameless pastors then?… hm… I also read of many testimonies by Christians whom God had led to heaven and hell, and they reported that many pastors ended up in Hell even though they believed in #4 …hm… *

36. So few people come to our prayer meeting! *you forbid praying in tongue (#30), you refuse to pray for healing (#16), you discourage us from praying for prosperity (#14), you discourage us from battling demons (#20), you don’t let us confess our sins (#28), we don’t even know whether fasting or prayers is useful (#27), you say prayers are useless for psychological problems (#24), you don’t let us keep watch and prepare for the end time (#5), you tell us not to seek God’s face (#37), and you told us not to seek God’s will on something that occupies us 8 hours per day 40 hours a week such as career (#17), then why should I go to your prayer meeting? *

37. Don’t seek God’s face. If He shows up, you will either drop dead on the spot or you will be bossed around by Him so much you would rather die.

Conclusion:

I am lucky that I am in an evangelical church. If I have been in the medieval Catholic Church, they would have labelled me as heretic and burn me on the stake for criticizing the church.

Demonic lies are everywhere.

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John 10:10, The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

I just recently learned how much the thief was actually able to steal and rob from us: family, joy, opportunities, accomplishment, relationship, honor, health, peace, spiritual blessings (such as visions, calling, gifts), time (in the unit of year), purity, and all that.

For example, sexual abuse of children is ultimately the enemy stealing innocence from children. It disables many children even after they grow up.

What should we do? God will do His part, but if we do our part, He will be able to do even more. God needs our co-labor to perform to His fullest.

One of the things that He needs us to do is to exercise our legal rights. As His children, we are like a person who inherited billions of dollars, but doesn’t really understand the authority and legal process that enable her to enjoy the money.

If an evil lawyer try to swindle our inheritance away from that child, the child needs to defend herself with her legal right.

Here is the legal right for Christians:

Joel 2:25 I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—

The Lord promised that He will repay you for all the years that has been wasted due to sabotage and robbery of the enemy, or your own mistakes, or both.

Proverbs 6: 30-31 People do not despise a thief. If he steals to satisfy himself when he is starving. Yet when he is found, he must restore sevenfold;

The Law requires that if a thief is caught, he needs to repay sevenfold.

If we ask God, He will let us know what exactly Satan has stolen from us, and we can appeal to God. We will receive restoration from the Lord Himself, and sevenfold from the enemy.

It sure hurts the kingdom of Satan.

Other relevant resource: Battle Prayer To Recover What the Enemy Has Stolen

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