THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT

Jesus replied, "'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind." This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: 'Love your neighbour as yourself."' Matthew 22:37-39

Some years ago, about three hundred whales were found stranded on a beach. Scientists speculated that the whales had been chasing sardines and became trapped in shallow water when the tide went out.

Now that's an amazing thing. By chasing little sardines, these gigantic creatures were ultimately led to their doom.

Many people waste their lives chasing non-essentials. They major on the minors and have no clear focus or objectives in life.

But God tells us what should be the primary goal of every Christian. If we can get our priorities straight in this area, everything else will come together.

In fact, if we can get these two principles operating in our lives, then all the commandments of God will become a natural outflow of our commitment to Him.

What are these principles?

• You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.

• Love your neighbour as yourself. When Jesus spoke these words, He was identifying what should be the focus of every person.

Essentially, He was saying that love is the basis for all obedience. If you really love God, then you will naturally want to do the things that please Him.

In fact, if you would love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and would love your neighbour as yourself, you would never transgress a single commandment of God. You would have fulfilled all the requirement of the law.

What is your highest priority in life? What is your greatest desire? Is it to please God? Then love the Lord and love your neighbour.

Prayer: Lord, help me love You with all my heart, my soul, and my mind, and love others as myself.

Scriptural Reading: Matthew 22:23-40

Life In The Blood

TEXT: LEVITICUS 17:8-16

Key verse: “And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people” (Leviticus 17:10).

The reason, no doubt, the laws of most nations of the world are stiff concerning murder and bloodshed is because of the value God has placed on life. Israel’s redemption from Egyptian slavery and bondage was made possible by the blood of the passover lamb. In other words, they were saved by the shedding of the blood of the animal; its death becoming substitutionary for the people. The Lord directed the children of Israel that the blood of the lamb at passover was to be placed on the two side posts and on the upper door post of every home, “and when I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Exodus 12:13).

The life of the flesh is in the blood (verse 11). The blood of any animal is identified with its life. The animal sacrifice is used as atonement for human sin at the price of the animal’s life. This is the principle of substitutionary atonement: the animal dying in man’s place. This underscores the importance and pricelessness of the blood of Christ as the instrument of our salvation and redemption.

Eating of blood was prohibited because of the value God attaches to blood. It is also to discourage heathen and idolatrous practices and to preserve and remember the symbolism of the sacrifice – Christ’s death on the cross for the redemption of man. No other sacrifice is needed today. “For, there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). The Blood of the Saviour is the means by which believers have been ransomed, the means by which we have been vindicated over guilt and condemnation. Therefore the Blood must be sacredly appreciated.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: “Without shedding of blood, no remission of sin.”

Prayer for new week

 This is your week of testimonies, receive testimonies because of the blood of Jesus, receive grace for your job, profession, family, academics and every area of your life. Every famine ruling over your life in any area will be terminated now in Jesus name. Your days will not be wasted in the mighty name of Jesus J


Happy New Week from us ASB-World. 

Strawberries and Cream Pie

For the crust:

·         1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

·         1/4 teaspoon salt

·         8 tablespoons cold butter, cubed

·         3 tablespoons ice water, or more as needed

For the filling:

·         3 cups whole milk

·         1/2 cup heavy cream

·         1 vanilla bean, halved and scraped

·         1/2 cup granulated sugar

·         1/3 cup cornstarch

·         3 eggs

·         2 tablespoons butter

·         1 quart strawberries, hulled

·         2 tablespoons wildflower honey

1.     Preheat the oven to 425º F.

2.     Make the pie crust: In a large bowl or in a food processor, combine the flour and salt. Add the butter and toss to coat. Cut the butter into the flour with your hands, or pulse in the food processor until the butter resembles the size of peas.

3.     Add the water and mix to combine. The dough should come together easily but not be wet or sticky. Wrap the dough and chill for at least 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

4.     On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough until it's 1/4 inch thick. Transfer it to a pie plate, and trim the edges so there is only 1/2 inch of overhang all around. Chill the dough inside the pie plate for at least 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

5.     Fold the excess dough under at the edges, pressing gently to “seal” the dough to the pie plate. Finish the edges as desired. Poke the base of the crust a few times with a fork. If the dough seems warm, chill it again.

6.     Line the crust with parchment paper and pie weights, and bake until the crust is golden and crisp, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the parchment and pie weights and continue baking until the crust is fully baked, 5 to 10 minutes more. Cool completely.

7.     To make the finished pie, mix the milk, cream, vanilla bean, and 1/4 cup of sugar together in a medium sauce pot. Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium-low heat.

8.     While the milk warms up, whisk together the remaining 1/4 cup sugar, cornstarch, and eggs in a medium heat-safe bowl.

9.     When the milk comes to a simmer, gradually pour the hot liquid into the egg mixture, whisking constantly to combine. Return the mixture to the pot and cook until the mixture is thick and comes to the "first boil" (one large bubble rising from the center of the pot, not many small bubbles around the edges).

10.              Whisk in the butter and pour the mixture into the prepared pie crust. Cover the surface of the pudding directly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until fully chilled, at least 3 hours.

11.              To finish the pie, top the pie with the strawberries. Warm the honey over medium heat, and when it’s runny, brush it over the strawberries. Serve the pie chilled.

source: food52.com

INSPIRATIONAL WORD, Live and Work

Father was a hardworking man who delivered bread as a living to support his wife and three children.

He spent all his evenings after work attending classes, hoping to improve himself so that he could one day find a better paying job.

Except for Sundays, Father hardly ate a meal together with his family.

He worked and studied very hard because he wanted to provide his family with the best money could buy.

Whenever the family complained that he was not spending enough time with them, he reasoned that he was doing all this for them. But he often yearned to spend more time with his family.

The day came when the examination results were announced. To his joy,

Father passed, and with distinctions too! Soon after, he was offered a good job as a senior supervisor which paid handsomely.

Like a dream come true, Father could now afford to provide his family with life’s little luxuries like nice clothing, fine food and vacation abroad.

However, the family still did not get to see father for most of the week. He continued to work very hard, hoping to be promoted to the position of manager.

In fact, to make himself a worthily candidate for the promotion, he enrolled for another course in the open university.

Again, whenever the family complained that he was not spending enough time with them, he reasoned that he was doing all this for them. But he often yearned to spend more time with his family.

Father’s hard work paid off and he was promoted. Jubilantly, he decided to hire a maid to relieve his wife from her domestic tasks.

He also felt that their three-room flat was no longer big enough, it would be nice for his family to be able to enjoy the facilities and comfort of a condominium.

Having experienced the rewards of his hard work many times before, Father resolved to further his studies and work at being promoted again.

The family still did not get to see much of him. In fact, sometimes Father had to work on Sundays entertaining clients.

Again, whenever the family complained that he was not spending enough time with them, he reasoned that he was doing all this for them. But he often yearned to spend more time with his family.

As expected, Father’s hard work paid off again and he bought a beautiful condominium overlooking the coast of Singapore.

On the first Sunday evening at their new home, Father declared to his family that he decided not to take anymore courses or pursue any more promotions.

From then on he was going to devote more time to his family.

Father did not wake up the next day.

Any moral lessons learnt? Please share with the rest of the world.

You are blessed and highly favoured!!

Can Sugar Make Your Brain Foggy?

By now you already know that too much sugar harms your body. It makes you fat, leads to diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, and the list goes on and on.

If you have a health problem, chances are it's caused by, or made worse by, too much sugar in your diet. An easy test is to stop eating sugar, including carbohydrates like white bread, pasta, and rice (which affect your body the same way as sugar) for a couple of months and see how you feel.

Chances are, you'll feel better. Remember, sugar comes in many forms. The most popular is high fructose corn syrup, but there are many other forms, including other types ending in -ose, starches and, of course, cane sugar, syrups and honey.

If you don't think you can bear to go without the sugar and refined carbohydrates outlined above, you are most likely a sugar/carb addict. That is a subject for another blog, but in short, science has determined that in some people, sugar and carbs cause the release of dopamine in the brain, which is connected with pleasure and reward, so you never get enough ... in fact, you always want more.

This is a big problem for your health, but perhaps more importantly because no person should be in bondage to any substance, whether sugar, carbs, alcohol, painkillers, cocaine and so on.

If you find yourself thinking, "I can't go without ... " and you complete the sentence with a substance, you are an addict, and you need help. Humans are not made to be slaves to substances. We should be in control of them, not the other way around.

But take heart: if you are under the control of a substance, you can change! In the case of sugar and carbs, you probably only need to go cold turkey, exercise extreme self-control for a time and your cravings will go away in a few days to a few weeks.

I am speaking from experience. However, if you're addicted to any of the other substances listed above, please get help from one many treatment centers and organizations available.

So while we've established that sugar is terrible for your body, did you also know it wrecks your brain? It does!

Researchers at UCLA fed three groups of rats the same food: "rat chow," or regular rat food. During this time, the researchers trained all three groups of rats to navigate a maze.

The maze had lots of walls, visual markings, so the rats could learn their way, and one exit. All three groups of rats learned the maze the same.

Then the researchers substituted one rat group's water with water spiked with fructose.

Sound familiar? That's what soda is. So that group of rats ingested lots of sugar over a period of six weeks. At the end of the six weeks the rats who had been fed fructose were slower and had greater difficulty remembering how to get through the maze than the rats who hadn't been fed the sugar.

According to one of the researchers, "Their brains showed a decline in synaptic activity. Their brain cells had trouble signaling each other, disrupting their ability to think clearly and recall the route they'd learned six weeks earlier." 

The rats that were fed fructose also developed insulin resistance. Researchers suggest this disrupts learning and causes memory loss and corrupts the brain's ability to process thoughts and emotions.

According to one scientist with the study, "Insulin is important in the body for controlling blood sugar, but it may play a different role in the brain, where insulin appears to disturb memory and learning," he said. "Our study shows that a high-fructose diet harms the brain as well as the body. This is something new."

But wait, there's more: a fascinating twist. Remember there were three rat groups? One stuck with the original diet, the other was fed a bunch of sugar, and the third was given a bunch of sugar AND...Omega-3 fats, like the kind found salmon, walnuts, and flax. The group of rats that was fed sugar and Omega-3 fats navigated the maze much better than the group of rats that had just sugar.

The conclusion is obvious. Omega-3 fats lessen the destructive impact of sugar on the brain.

We can learn a lot from this study. The first thing is to avoid fructose like the plague. Regardless of what we do during the day, we must perform at our best intellectual ability, and fructose simply handicaps our thinking process.

We must look at the list of ingredients in all the things we purchase, because fructose is added to an estimated 80 percent of the items at the typical grocery store. If you see fructose in the list of ingredients, or one of its sugary cousins, such as ingredients ending in -ose, or "starch" or "syrup," don't purchase it.

Of course fructose and related sugary ingredients are added to sweets like cookies and candy. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. They're in foods that many people do not consider sweet, but they really are, such as bread, crackers, pasta sauce, granola bars, cereal, yogurt, jelly, and on and on and on.

So read the list of ingredients. Remember the list begins with the ingredients the food contains the most of, and goes from there. So if sugar is the first ingredients, run for the hills. That means it contains more sugar than anything else. This applies to many foods. Don't believe me? Check out the ingredients of soda or kiddie cereal.

If you are less than perfect, and choose to eat something sugary, this study teaches us that we can mitigate the damage from that sugar by consuming Omega-3 fats. Although these healthy fats are found in foods like salmon, walnuts, and flax, it's actually difficult to get enough Omega-3s from our diet.

So it's best to take a fish oil supplement. Make sure you look at the label of the supplement and get the one that tells you how many milligrams of DHA are in each capsule. Take enough capsules each day to equal about one gram of DHA per day.

By the way, you should know that the consumption of too many Omega-6 fats blocks your body's ability to process Omega-3 fats. So it's best to cut way, way back on Omega-6 fats. These are vegetable oils, corn, soybean, canola, etc. These are the oils in the clear, plastic bottles that line the grocery store shelves. Also check the list of ingredients on processed foods for these unhealthy oils.

A good diet consists of consuming EQUAL amounts of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fats. However, the average American consumes 20 times more Omega-6 fats than Omega-3s, and this imbalance leads to massive inflammation, a known killer. And since the two types of fats compete against each other, eating too many Omega-6 fats blocks your body's ability to process the healthy Omega-3s.

So to summarize, for healthy brain function, including memory and thinking, stay away from sugar and take one gram of DHA in a supplement form each day. Finally, drastically reduce your consumption of Omega-6 oil.

Source:charismamag.com

Shun Party Spirit

TEXT: PROVERBS 21:16-31

Key verse: “He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man: he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich” (Proverbs 21:17).

It will be difficult to quantify the number of families and lives that have been ruined by the love of alcohol. The bottle has not only succeeded in impoverishing many that love it, but has stolen away joy, peace and harmony in many homes. Many children have been denied the love, warmth, affection and care expected to be given in the family due to the influence of alcohol. How many promising men, having great potentials and wonderful careers have had their careers ruined and thrown out of job because they have become slaves to alcohol. And there are countless number of untimely deaths, young wives turned to early widows and children orphaned at tender age, all due to alcohol.

Our passage today warns against the practice of abandoning oneself to pleasure. There are so many people who spend all their time and money seeking for pleasure. They can be said to be possessed by the party spirit. While they cannot afford to pay their children’s school fees and provide for their basic essentials of life, they can afford the money for expensive party dresses, designer’s perfumes and other such vanities. Some even go to the extent of taking loans just to organize parties.

This is the spirit of the world and must not be found among Christians. Christians are supposed to be discreet, prudent and wise in all their dealings. Their lives are to be lived to the glory of the Lord. We should also bear in mind that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which must not be defiled with alcohol or any other such defilements.

It is not only the Bible that warns against the danger of alcohol and reckless pleasure seeking. Government agencies have joined in the campaign. The wise will take heed and keep off. Whatever subtracts from a sober Christian fellowship which must be Christ-honouring and soul-seeking cannot be of God. We must avoid all tendencies that paint the believer in lurid, worldly colours.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Don’t be mocked by wine; be wise.