Paving the Wei

Sermon by Ps Daniel Khong at the Faith Community Baptist Church 3 Oct 2026.  Scripture: James 1:19-27 talks about being a disciple of Christ, in a practical manner. James Willard says that, "A disciple is one who follows with the intent of becoming." The aligns with what Luke wrote that everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher. How do we become true disciples of Jesus? 1. Listen to Understand (God's word) James addresses the people who are slow to listen, quick to react and quick to arguei reject what we hear, we must receive with meekness the word that can save our lives. 2. Understand to Do (God's work) We can learn stuff but usually we do not do. James told us to be doers and nor hearers only, deceiving ourselves. We cannot separate being and doing. We should look into the word, and continue on a regular basis, and doing it.  3. Do to become (more like Christ) James uses the word "religious" on v26-27. Religion is not wrong -...

Sermons by Ps Daniel Khong at the Faith Community Baptist Church 26 Sep 2026. The book of James tells us of faith in a practical way and establishes that faith must be practised. This is why it is a good book for new believers. Scripture: James 1:12-18 talks about temptation and gifts from God.  What is temptation? Anything that will seduce the mind and heart away from obedience into sin - John Owen. In most cases, most things are not inherently evil - job, money - but they have potential to pull us away from God. Few points to note Sin is a process and temptation is a key part Struggling with temptation is not sin Temptation can be escaped How to flee (escape) temptation? 1. Don't engage distractions V14 tells that each one will be drawn away, or lured forth. We are lured by our own desires, got enticed which gave birth to sin and then leads us to death. We will be doing our normal things when something distracts us out of nowhere. The Bible says to flee from such... 2...

Sermon by Ps Daniel Khong at the Faith Community Baptist Church on 19 Sep 2026. The general epistle of James was likely written by the brother of Jesus, and is a broad letter to the 12 tribes of Israel which are scattered abroad. This means it is not specific, but covers many topics/lessons that he has learnt in life. Because it covers many things, the book of James is recommended to new believers. In the first verse after the initial greeting, James says that we will all have trials and a testing of our faith. But if we go thru this, we will become perfect (mature) and complete in our faith. GV Wigram wrote that "Sorrow and trials are like the sand and grit that polish a stone". What must we hold on in order to be mature in trials? 1. Reliance on God It does not matter what the problem is, we need wisdom to go through it. If we lack wisdom, we should ask God and he will give to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given. God is interested in us and ...

Recap: In the previous  post  I talked about divorce and (premature) death as one of the things that we should avoid (duh!) if we want our kids to be successful. Just because we stay together does not mean that our kids will do well, but it is almost certain that if we become a single parent, the hurdle gets even higher.  So, how do we maintain our marriage for 10, 20, 30 years...for as long as we can?  Professor Arthur Aron of SUNY Stony Brook became famous for his 36 questions that will lead to 2 persons to fall in love. These start off with questions like "...whom do you want to be as dinner guests?" and "would you like to be famous?" to more serious questions like "when did you last cry?" and "share a personal problem and ask your partner's advice on how to..." Well, this probably do not apply to those already in a marriage as these questions are to make you fall in love. The bigger question (and more important one) is how to remain in lo...

Can Project Management be applied in real life?  The quick answer is obviously a "Yes". But the more important  and likely the more difficult question to answer is "How?"  In my previous posts, I mentioned that that project management is where we intentially plan for what lies ahead, and is the exact opposite of allowing " nature to take its course ". More often than not, most of us live our lives as though we are out at sea, drifting in a tiny boat that gets tossed by the wind, where the waves push us up, down, and sideways and there is not a lot we can do about it, except to hope for the best that somehow we will find land and survive.  But what if we make a conscious effort to harness the wind to our advantage? Just like the windsurfer who uses the board and sail to move forward, we too can plan ahead so that our lives can move towards the direction that we want it. If we make a conscious effort of what this is, we can say at the end of our journey on E...

In the series of "Life after..." by the Straits Times published 14 Sep 2026, producer/director Desmond Tan, 51, was commenting on his Stage 4 cancer diagnosis. Due to his workload, he would survive on 2 hours of sleep, 2 cups of coffee and 2 cans of Red Bull. In his interview, he mentioend that there was a prominent director of commercials also had the same type of cancer, who has since died.  Not only that but the list included other colleagues with breast, pancreatic, lung and colon cancer. In his own words, "many of us are relatively young and healthy. That really got me thinking that there is something wrong with the industry." He continued that, "I actually think that sleep is very underrated and people do not talk about (it) enough." In the same newspaper, there was another article with the title "Weighing a promotion against work life balance". The question that was asked if whether it is worth to give up a promotion for better...