10 Things To Remember

 

FB Page: https://facebook.com/LEGASI.tv/            
Podcast: https://anchor.fm/LEGASI.tv/         
YouTube: http://bit.ly/LEGASItv

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

BOOK REVIEW – Crushing It! How Great Entrepreneurs Build Their Business and Influence – and How You Can, Too (2018) by Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk or GaryVee, is a Russian-American entrepreneur, author, speaker and internet personality. It’s you’re an entrepreneur (or wanna-be) and active in social media, you’ll know him. In his 2009 international bestseller Crust It!, Gary insisted that a vibrant personal brand was crucial to entrepreneurial success. In Crushing It!, 9 years later, Gary explains why that’s even truer today, offering his unique perspective on what has changed and what principles remain timeless.

How do I know Gary? Through social media, books, and podcasts. How Gary makes a difference in my life? Because of his in-your-face advice and sometimes renegade wisdom, I start again using Instagram again and created a Twitter account to share my materials on leadership, leadership, and creativity – in short, my personal brand. Also, when my blog URL was blocked on Facebook last month, I have to find another way to spread my brand. Wala!? Create videos and share them on YouTube! It’s not because of Gary alone, of course, but one of the cheerleaders is him. So you can see how valuable this book is to me personally.

There are two (2) parts in this book:

Part 1: Get Pumped. Here Gary tells the importance of building your personal brand, turn your passion into profit, eight things that really matter to “Crushing It!” (Namely, 1) Intent, 2) Authenticity, 3) Passion, 4) Patience, 5) Speed, 6) Work, 7) Attention, and 8) Content. I shared briefly in the video), advised his readers to document rather than creating, reveals the reasons what stopping people from “Crushing It!” and a chapter on giving yourself permission to just do it! I’m pumped up after I finished reading this part.

Part 2: Create Your Pillar. Basically, this part is all about practicality. There are three (3) basics thing that you HAVE to do: 1) create a Facebook page; 2) the importance of using hashtags#, and 3) encouragement to collaborate and partner with others. Then he devotes each chapter to explain about Musical.ly, Snapchat, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Podcasts and Voice-First. Worth reading it! Gary also tells the stories at the end of each chapter how others used his timeless principles in “Crush It!” to build their businesses and influence.

#LetsMakeReadingCoolAgain

Want to Buy Book(s)? https://my.carousell.com/richard_angelus/

Blog: https://richardangelus.me

IG: https://instagram.com/richard_angelus

Twitter: https://twitter.com/angelus_richard

YouTube: https://youtu.be/GW-6NTrAmRE

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

From Ruth to Rich: How to Start Praying? Just Pray

As I read late Billy Graham’s Just As I Am (1997) autobiography, I’m encouraged by his wife, Ruth Bell, for her life, support, and works in the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association ministry. About Ruth, Billy writes, “God gave Ruth many, many gifts, one of which was writing.” I agree. In this series, I try to imagine (one of God’s greatest gifts to humankind) what would Ruth Bell says to encourage young man like me – and perhaps, you. I hope you enjoy it!

My dearest son, Richard,

            About the previous letter, I wrote about prayer… and let me continue with that theme here. A balance. As you know, my child, men of God whose prayers are recorded for us in the Scriptures, never read a book on prayer, never went to a seminar on prayer, never heard a sermon on prayer. They just prayed. Satan fears prayer because God hears prayer. Satan will stop at nothing to distract a person from praying or to get us to postpone praying or, failing to do that, to discourage us in our prayers.

This letter is simply to encourage you to START. Start praying where you are, as you are, about whatever concerns you, about whatever is lying most heavily on your heart, about whatever is irritating or frustrating you at present. Here is my suggestion: Keep a prayer list. Make your requests specific and date them. Then date the answer. Like the ungrateful lepers, we tend to forget. It may be impossible to date the answers to certain requests. For instance, if I pray for patience, I will not find that on such and such a date I suddenly become patient. But if I pray for guidance in a particular problem, for the conversion of a friend or for the resolving of some apparently hopeless difficulty, recording the answer as well as the request will be a cause for worship and a means of strengthening my faith.

You may not likely to keep a prayer list, I know you. But let this be an encouragement for you to just START praying. Be pointed. Be persistent. Be patient. But pray!

With love,

Ruth Bell Graham

(1920 – 2007)

THINK BIG.  START SMALL. GO DEEP.

                  

            

Timothy, the Depth of My Sin Only Demonstrate the Depth of God’s Perfect Patience (1 Timothy 1:16)

“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life”
(1 Timothy 1:15-16, ESV)

Paul, who confessed to being Public Sinner Number One (see previous post), says he now has become the first and foremost demonstration of God’s perfect patience. God waited and waited while Paul was blaspheming and persecuting (read 1 Timothy 1:13). The depth of Paul’s sin only demonstrated the depth of God’s perfect patience. God was holding back His righteous acts against Paul’s sin for a very long time so that he might be saved.

If God’s perfect patience applied to Paul and his day, how much more does it apply for this past 2,000 years of world history and especially to the world today in which we live. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of sin. I’m fed up with it as I face it day by day in my own life. I wish the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil will go away! Moreover, I’m sick and tired of sins that I see around me that laugh at God, no fear and respect for God, and ignorance of God’s grace and perfect patience in this world. If a mortal man like me feels like this, I wonder how a holy God must feel who sees sin infinite times over with His all-seeing and all-knowing attributes. Surely, most surely God must be a God of grace, mercy, and perfect patience! He is! But why?

The reason for God’s perfect patience is that “an example” might be given for “those who were to believe in him for eternal life” in this age of grace. Paul is saying that God’s grace in saving him was an example for every believer like you and me. This example is big enough to include anyone no matter what the nature of his or her sin or how great it might be. This week I had the privilege of dealing with a college student who honestly thought he was too great a sinner to be saved by Christ. So I showed him 1 Timothy 1:12-17 and explained that Paul was the Public Sinner Number One and yet God shows His grace and mercy and saved him (and I gave my testimony). Nobody needs to fear that God wouldn’t receive him or her – only repent and believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

God “is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish,

but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9)

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

A Lesson from Impatient Wife, Soft Husband and Proud Servant (Genesis 16:1-6)

“Sarai, Abram’s wife, hadn’t yet produced a child. She had an Egyptian maid named Hagar. Sarai said to Abram, ‘God has not seen fit to let me have a child. Sleep with my maid. Maybe I can get a family from her.’ Abram agreed to do what Sarai said. So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took her Egyptian maid Hagar and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife. Abram had been living ten years in Canaan when this took place. He slept with Hagar and she got pregnant. When Hagar learned she was pregnant, she looked down on her mistress.

Sarai told Abram, ‘It’s all your fault that I’m suffering this abuse. I put my maid in bed with you and the minute she knows she’s pregnant, she treats me like I’m nothing. May God decide which of us is right.’ ‘You decide,’ said Abram. ‘Your maid is your business.’ Sarai was abusive to Hagar and Hagar ran away”

(Genesis 16:1-6, The Message)

This is both encouraging and troubling: Abram’s life of faith was up and down like roller coaster. Encouraging because mine is like that too; and troubling because his doubtful- attitude is like mine too. Huh. In Genesis 15 we saw Abram believing God’s big-scale promise to make him a great nation. But in the next chapter we see him taking matters into his hands again.

Knowing Sarai couldn’t possibly bear children at her old age, she invited Abram to sleep with her maid Hagar in hope that she would bear a child (on behalf of her since Hagar was her bondage-servant) who would be the beginning of Abram’s great nation. At least start with one child. The promise, after all, said that Abram would become the father of great nation – it didn’t specify that the children he fathered had to be legitimate. Hello!

So Abram slept with the servant woman – clearly put: having sex – and she got pregnant. Soon Sarai began to realize what a mistake she had made. Hagar the Egyptian “looked down on her mistress.” She became proud, and probably felt loved by Abraham because she bore his child. This is a better drama than TV3 Malay drama. So Sarai could no longer stand the sight of Hagar. In her eagerness to help God keep His promise and in her unwillingness to wait for God’s timing and somewhat became queen control, Sarah traded in her dignity, and Abram (sadly) had let her. It was a tragedy, disastrous. Abram became soft. Hagar became proud. Sarai became abusive.

Wait. That’s what I learned from this story. It’s hard, but wait for God is the best thing to do. On waiting Charles H. Spurgeon writes, “If the Lord Jehovah makes us wait, let us do so with our whole hearts; for blessed are all they that wait for Him. He is worth waiting for. The waiting itself is beneficial to us: it tries faith, exercises patience, trains submission, and endears the blessing when it comes. The Lord's people have always been a waiting people.”

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Young Men, Consider the Suffering of Jesus

“Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps”

(2 Peter 2:21, NIV).

Our Lord Jesus Christ was the Prince of sufferers. Here, as in all else, He was preeminent (surpassing all others). We tend to conceive of His sufferings mainly in the realm of the physical, but so intense were His spiritual sufferings that physical pain could have been almost a relief.

He was a sinless Sufferer. Note the juxtaposition of the two thoughts: Christ “suffered for you… He committed no sin” (1 Peter 2:21-22). His sinlessness only added to the poignancy of His sufferings. Suffering can mean much or little according to the nature of the person. An unmusical person does not perceive a discord, but to the sensitive musician, it causes exquisite pain. Neglect is not keenly felt when love is lacking. In the human nature of the Master, passion had not done its ugly work, nor had His powers become atrophied through neglect. It is the holy person who feels sin most keenly.

He was a sensitive Sufferer. Jesus was the essence of refinement and sensitivity. He possessed all the gentler graces as well as all the innocence of manhood. He was by nature a sensitive person. How He must have suffered when denounced as a deceiver and a liar (see John 7:12); a blasphemer (Matthew 9:3); in league with the devil (see John 8:52); a glutton and a drunkard (Luke 7:34). Jesus was really human, and these charges occasioned Him intense suffering. His suffering was real, not a theatrical display; and these verbal accusations pierced more deeply than the crown of thorns.

He was a sacrificed Sufferer. The substitutionary element in Christ’s death is prominent in this paragraph. “Christ suffered from you… ‘He himself bore our sins’ in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:21, 24). He not only pardoned our sins but took them away. How amazing that the blood that stained the soldier’s spear was the sole remedy for the soldier’s sin! Whoever dreamed of the crime procuring salvation? And His death was not only vicarious but voluntary. He was led, not dragged to the cross.

He was a silent Sufferer. “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats” (1 Peter 2:23). He harbored no spirit of retaliation. Like an aromatic leaf, the crushing only released the fragrance. Not a word of complaint crossed His lips. Instead He “entrusted himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23).

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Jesus care (More) about the Quality of Fruit in our Lives, Not Quantity

Good tree bears good fruit

“A tree is identified by its fruit. If a tree is good, its fruit will be good. If a tree is bad, its fruit will be bad. You brood of snakes! How could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For whatever is in your heart determines what you say. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgement day for every idle word you speak. The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you”
(Matthew 12:33-37, NLT).

Trees are identified by leaf structure and organization, bark, shape, fruit and even DNA. Some trees like walnuts produce seeds without fruit – nuts. So what was Jesus’ first point? He was talking about identifying a type of tree; he was talking about the qualities within a certain type of tree. He wasn’t comparing apple trees and orange trees; he was pointing to the difference between a good apple tree and a bad apple tree, a desirable orange tree and an undesirable orange tree. In that case, the proof is in the fruit.

The kind of fruit (in this context) Jesus had in mind was words. He was directing his comments to the Pharisees who had mocked the healing of the demon-possessed man by accusing Jesus of operating under the influence of Satan (Matthew 12:24). By this point Jesus had demonstrated that the opposite was actually true – his accusers had revealed that they (the Pharisees) were producing the fruit of Satan (blaspheming the Holy Spirit).

In Matthew 12:30-32 (refer to previous post), we read about what happens when we resist the work of the Holy Spirit. But the wider teaching of Scripture gives us good clues about the positive side of that process – what happens when we cooperate with the Holy Spirit and let God bring forth fruit in our lives. Apostle Paul put it very well in Galatians 5:22-23: “The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!”

Jesus’ words of confrontation in Scripture portion above may seem harsh to us, but his awareness of the Pharisees’ deep-seated unbelief required a kind of shocking language. The Holy Spirit used his words to crack their internal hardness or they simply rejected what he had said. Either way, they could never say they weren’t sternly warned. Think about this: Fruit quantity is not the same as quality. What a disappointment to bite into a beautiful fruit that is mealy or rotten inside. We must go beyond asking for fruit to ask God to grow good fruit in us. What kind of fruit have you been producing lately? And what is contained in the treasury of your heart?

Jesus, my Master Gardener, please in charge of growing good fruit in my life. Amen.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Jesus on the Process of Spiritual Growth (Mark 4:26-29)

The parable of the Sower (Mark 4:1-20) is the parable of the parables. “Don’t you understand this parable?” Jesus asked his disciples and us today, “How, then, will you ever understand any parable?” (Mark 4:13). Thus, it is important for us to understand first or to read through again the parable of the Sower before we study the parable of the Growing Seed (Mark 4:26-29) and the parable of the Mustard Seed (4:30-32). It will be must easier to understand other parables too (Click HERE to read my previous reflection).

Jesus went on the say, “The Kingdom of God is like this. A man scatters the seed in his field. He sleeps at night, is up and about during the day, and all the while the seeds are sprouting and growing. Yet he does not know how it happens. The soil itself makes the plants grow and bear fruit; first the tender stalk appears, then the head, and finally the head full of grain. When the grain is ripe, the man starts cutting it with his sickle, because harvest time has come” (Mark 4:26-29, GNB).

Whenever we read a parable like this, we must remember that: it is a parable. The truth is there but don’t try to over-spiritualize every details. For believers, the obvious is the core message. In essence this parable is about the mystery of how God’s Word grow in the hearts of men. It is about the process of spiritual growth in the Kingdom of God. I’m encourage by this parable because even if I don’t know how God’s Word grow in people’s lives, but as I “sows God’s message” (Mark 4:14), regardless of how much people “hear the message” (4:20), I know that sooner or later it will produce “the fruit.” Therefore, I’m very comfortable with this mystery.

“[The sower] does not know how it happens.” The process of growth is hidden from us. Before I seriously studied this parable, I thought that there are ‘secrets’ formulas that we have to know to advance the Gospel and there are some persuasive evangelism techniques that we should mastered before we witness to people. I failed to realize the element of mystery in God’s Kingdom. This extra dimension is what missing from my personal witness and understanding of spiritual growth. I thank Jesus for this parable! Another truth I learned is that the growth is gradual. As the man in this parable sleep, “the seeds are sprouting”; as he get up, the seed are “growing.” The growth starts small, slowly but keep on growing.

The seeds sprout mysteriously, hidden, gradual and slowly but surely it will grow! The growth is sure. It will eventually be “full of grain.” I like to end this reflection with an encouragement: Share God’s Word as much as possible, as frequent as possible, as faithful as possible. Never give up, never get tired, never pull out. Speak the Word, live the Word, share the Word. You might never get to see how “the seeds” of God’s Word may grow in people’s lives but remember that it will grow hidden within their hearts, it will gradually grow day by day. And if “the soil” (4:28) is good, the growth is sure! Friend, the “harvest time [will and] has come.” Where is your “sickle”?

“The Kingdom of God is like this.”

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

What is Maturity?

“God isn’t interested in our success

He’s interested in our maturity” (Fred Smith).

Maturity is what lack in our society today. I’m concern, do you? Maturity doesn’t necessary come with age or number of our birthdays; it comes, in my mind, with acceptance of responsibility. Where acceptance of responsibility absents or denied in the family circles or in workplace or church, it shows the level of our immaturity. Matured people accept responsible willingly and exercise authority with a humble heart. What else is maturity? Ann Landers writes:

Maturity is the ability to control anger and settle differences without violence or destruction.

Maturity is patience. It is the willingness to pass up immediate pleasure in favor of the long-term gain.

Maturity is perseverance, the ability to sweat out a project or a situation in spite of heavy opposition and discouraging setbacks.

Maturity is the capacity to face unpleasantness and frustration, discomfort and defeat, without complaint or collapse.

Maturity is humility. It is being big enough to say “I was wrong.” And, when right, the mature person need not experience the satisfaction of saying, “I told you so.”

Maturity is the ability to make a decision and stand by it. The immature spend their lives exploring endless possibilities; then they do nothing.

Maturity means dependability, keeping one’s word, coming through in crisis. The immature are masters of alibi. They are disorganized. Their lives are a maze of broken promises, former friends, unfinished business, and good intentions that somehow never materialize.

Maturity is the art of living in peace with that which we cannot change, the courage to change that which should be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Are you a matured person?

Pastor Chuck Swindoll puts it this way: “A sign of maturity is when you go

from a thick skin and a hard heart to a tough skin and a soft heart.”

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.