Dear Friends,
Happy New Year!
Many years ago. I was impacted by reading the “confession” of President Eisenhower. Looking back at his two four year terms of presidency, he mentioned that he had two trays in his Oval office. One was marked URGENT and the other IMPORTANT. He rued and lamented that he spent over 90% of his time attending to the Urgent and a minute amount of time and energy to the truly important.
Last June I picked up The 5 Choices – the Path that lead to Extraordinary Productivity. Based on the writings of Stephen and Franklin Covey with their invaluable Time Matrix, this book will stir us to focus on priorities and actions that ultimately will make a big difference in serving the Lord and ministering to people that He has entrusted to us. I am re-producing their Four Quadrants for you to explore and implement. This fits in well with our entering into a New Year as we seek to heed the Apostle Paul’s call to live wisely making the most of every opportunity (Eph.5:16,16) Older readers are more familiar with the KJV phrase “redeeming your time”.
I’ve included a few quotes on Money since I shall be preaching on this topic at the end of the month. The quote on the Crusader’s sword at baptism sent shivers in my spine!
Every blessing!
Chua Wee Hian
The FOUR QUADRANTS: Read, Mark. Learn and Fervently Apply!
Further Exploration:
THE 5 CHOICES THE PATH TO EXTRAORDINARY PRODUCTIVITY .
Kory Kogon, Adam Merrill & Leena Rinne (Simon Schuster)
Websites : The Time Matrix – Stephen Covey or Franklin Covey.
TIME: Certainly wise people know that time is a precious commodity. All of us have the same amount of time at our disposal, with sixty minutes to every hour, and twenty four hours in every day. None of us can stretch time. But wise people use it to the fullest advantage. They know that time is passing…. So they seize each fleeting opportunity whilst it is still there. For once it has passed, even the wisest person cannot recover it. Somebody once advertised as follows “LOST yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward offered for they are gone forever.”
BEWARE: SUGAR!
“In 2012 about 56 million people died throughout the world; 620,000 of them died due to human violence (war killed 120,000 people, and crime killed another 500,000). In contrast, 800,000 committed suicide, and 1.5 million died of diabetes.23 Sugar is now more dangerous than gunpowder.”
HOMO CONSUMER?
Man is in the process of becoming homo consumer, a total consumer. He has a new religious vision in which heaven is just a big warehouse where everyone buy something new every day, indeed, whenever he can buy anything he wants and even a little more than his neighbour.
NOT MY MONEY!
When the Crusades were being fought, the crusaders employed mercenaries to fight on their behalf. Because it was a religious war, the crusaders insisted that the mercenaries be baptised before fighting. As they were being baptised, the mercenaries would hold their swords out of the water to symbolise the one thing in their life that Jesus had no control. They had the freedom to use their swords in any way that they wished. Today many people handle their money in a similar fashion, though they may not be as obvious about it. They hold their wallet or purse “out of the water,” in effect saying, “God, you can be Lord of my entire life except in my money. I am perfectly capable of handling myself.”
We have so much debt in our nation that the average person has been described as someone driving on a debt-financed road, in a bank-financed car, powered by credit-card financed fuel, going to purchase furniture on an installment plan to put in his mortgage-financed home.
TRY THIS EXPERIMENT
Hold the most valuable currency note in your non-dominant hand. Gaze at it and ask:
What is the purpose of money? What is the point of money for you?
How important is money? What influence does money have on your values/work/lifestyle/decision-making?
What is more important than money? Is money No.1 in your life?
Money will buy:
A bed but not sleep;
Books but not brains;
Food but not an appetite;
A house but not a home;
Medicine but not health;
Amusement but not happiness;
A gold cross but not a Saviour.
£££
Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t really need, to impress people they don’t like.
£££
No one would have remembered the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions. He had money as well.
£££
Try not to become a man of success, but rather, a man of value.
QI (QUITE INTERESTING) – a BBC talk show where panelists submit interesting facts.
One in ten Europeans was conceived on an IKEA bed.
In 14thCentury England, babies were baptised in cider.
In Kygyzstan, 75% brides are kidnapped by their husbands.
Mouse potato – someone who spends a lot of time at a computer
In 2001 edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia, the compilers counted
33,830 different Christian denominations.
Human beings and elephants are the only creatures with chins.
Bees know when it’s going to rain, so they put in extra work the day before.
Orangutans warn off predators by making kissing noises.
4,000 MacDonald hamburgers are eaten every minute.
Each cow produces meat for those 4,000.
Chua Wee Hian has just produced a DVD set of 4 discs “Leaving a Lasting Legacy” based on his rich experiences of being a husband, father, grandfather, bible expositor, author, pastor, mentor, etc. He shares how we can instil character traits, talents, skills and faith in the next generation even while we live. Please see details of “Leaving a Lasting Legacy” in this issue.
