I hope I got the main points covered in the title. These are some of the very important principles on how to live, taught by Jesus. Words won’t mean anything until you are able to do through real life experience. Once you experienced, you’ll know the significance of these words.

Repentance:
In relatinships, repentance is a result of merciful heart.

Humility:
You have to be really humble, give up your pride, to be able to communicate an apology after repentance.

Respect:
Everyone deserves respect. Be respectiful and be careful.

Forgiving:
You have to be able to love in order to truly forgive. Try to forget how people treated you in the past. Just ignore how bad people treate you at the present time. Just stop thinking about all the bad experiences.

Communication:
You have to be really humble to communicate an apology. You need to express yourself so others know you are sincere about your apology.

Attitude:
Watch your attitude. Don’t be tempted to be cold, irrespectiful, cruel, judgemental, prideful. Pride creeps in without noticing. Everyone has pride. When your pride thinks you are better than others, it will cause trouble. So just stop thinking about how you are better than others. And start thinking about how others are better than you.

If you can’t forgive and start being cold, just think that the person who offended you still deserves respect and kindness. Be merciful and be kind. Let your heart be merviful and not cruel. Treat each one as a person who deserves love and kindness. Be considerate of others’ feelings.

If you think that others need to change themselves, but you have not successfully changed them. It’s time to think about how to change yourself, the way you think, your attitude when you talk, the way you communicate, how secere you are. If you want to criticise or blame someone, you’d better stop because most likely it won’t work as you expected. You need to love them and help them to change in a loving way.

Anger/mood management:
There are two categories: one is related to people, one is related to things. The previous paragraphs deal with people. For the second category, it’s for our own benefit not to let things that happen to bother us. It’s easy to say. When you are facing cancer, or have lost everything like Job, and you couldn’t go back in time to change things that have happened, all there is left is just to pray for peaceful mind. Prayer helps.

While, if you’ve read my previous posts, I think most people would agree that the miraculous design of the universe, including the human mind and body, did not come out of no where. There must be a creator, a God, behind all this. Then who is this God? I’d like to focus on Jesus, because he claimed to be God. Since no legitimate scholar today denies that Jesus is a historic figure that walked on this earth about 2,000 years ago, there is no need to prove that he existed in history.

I’d like to quote a paragraph I found at this place:
http://www.allaboutjesuschrist.org/is-jesus-god-c.htm

This is not my language and it might not sound good, but I think its logic is pretty interesting:

“Is Jesus God? Many people have dealt with this “spiritual” dispute by intellectually accepting Jesus as a great man, great teacher, or great prophet. However, Jesus and His inspired followers didn’t mince words when they declared Him to be God (John 10:30-38, Matthew 16:13-17, Mark 14:61-64, John 14:6, Hebrews 1:8, Colossians 1:16, John 12:40-41 [quoting Isaiah 6:1-10]). Therefore, any type of intellectual compromise calling Jesus a “good man” is logically inconsistent. Why? Because there are really only three legitimate alternatives for the identity of Jesus Christ. He is either a liar, a lunatic or our Lord and God. Since Jesus claimed to be God, His claims are either true or false. If false, He must have been a liar, deliberately misleading the multitudes. Or, He was a lunatic, sincerely believing Himself to be God, when in reality He was just a man. However, if Jesus was a “good man,” as most people now agree, how then could He be both good and crazy, or good and a liar? There is only one logically consistent alternative - He must have been telling the truth. In addition to the logical inconsistency, the remarkable historical, archaeological and manuscript evidence shows that Jesus was neither a liar nor a lunatic. Again, the only position left is that His claim is true. Jesus is Lord and God.

The only real argument that remains, is that Jesus was just a legend or myth. There is little likelihood that Jesus’ claims are legend. There just wasn’t enough time for any legendary development of the story to replace what really happened. For instance, we now know that the Gospels were written 30 to 50 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. More dramatically, we now date some of the early Christian creeds, proclaiming the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, to 3 to 10 years after His crucifixion. This includes Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, Romans and Galatians. Finally, if Jesus’ claim of deity was a myth, the early Jewish opponents of Christianity would surely have presented the fact that these claims never happened. Unlike modern skeptics, the Jewish rabbis never denied that Jesus made the claim that He was God. Instead, they called Him a liar, and tried Him for blasphemy. “

Here is another impressive statement from:
http://y-jesus.com/jesuscomplex_3.php

When one compares Jesus with the other great religious leaders, a remarkable distinction emerges. Ravi Zacharias, who grew up in a Hindu culture, has studied world religions and observed a fundamental distinction between other religious founders and Jesus Christ.

“Whatever we may make of their claims, one reality is inescapable. They are teachers who point to their teaching or show some particular way. In all of these, there emerges an instruction, a way of living. It is not Zoroaster to whom you turn; it is Zoroaster to whom you listen. It is not Buddha who delivers you; it is his Noble Truths that instruct you. It is not Mohammad who transforms you; it is the beauty of the Koran that woos you. By contrast, Jesus did not only teach or expound His message. He was identical with His message.”⁴

I actually missed the opening ceremony and was surprised to see the link here. Thanks to modern technology. But thinking further, the master mind behind all, thanks to God. While I was watching the opening ceremony, I thought, “This is unreal! Amazing! How could they do all this?” The beauty is in the multitudes and uniformity. Now think further, what does it all mean? It does not stop at the indication of the intelligence of humans. Humans did not exist at the beginning of time. I have some relatives who refuse to acknowledge the master mind behind all things - God, simply because God would not show himself to them. Yet, all things denote that there is a God. The intelligence of human beings proves that such creatures could not be the result of natural selection or the universe’s random product by chance. How could anyone be amazed at the work of man, but not the work of God?

The universe is well structured and follows its own laws, meanwhile many things seem to happen on a random basis. Why?

Whenever humans discover a new law of the universe, it seems that it was well thought of and designed by someone. Using our ability to think for an example, it’s the most amazing thing that happened. If humans can not think, the whole universe will mean nothing to us. Yet, the universe existed long before humans came into being. All things follow its own course without our control.

Then, is the appearing of human beings on earth planned or just happened by chance? If no matter what, sooner or later, the atmosphere of the earth will support human life and humans will come into being, then the appearing of humans on earth was planned. If the most amazing thing in the world - human beings - must appear on earth sooner or later no matter what, then there must be a creator who planned all this.

Even though human beings are intelligent in many ways like building airplanes, satellites, and nuclear bombs, the competition for power has led them to the foolish deeds - to kill and conquer instead of to love, eventually to destroy mankind. To love is the only sure way to safety. Interestingly, not many people can practice such wisdom, because we are led by pride and stubbornness in our hearts.

Untamed horses are harder to control. Horses can be trained so they will follow commands and do the job instead of following their own free will. Just like horses, humans can be trained too. If not, we’ll fail in this life. Who are the horse trainers? We, ourselves if we are not children any more.

As we observe relationships, we can see that some people can be uncooperative, stubborn.  If what we stand for is not significant, then we are stubborn. When two people won’t give way to each other, they can not get along. Either one person has to give in or both parties give way to each other, or the relationship will fail.

Focus on the good of others so the relationship can head to the positive direction.  No matter how many mean things a person did to you, there could be something that s/he did that was good to you. Concentrate on that to see what happens.

Control emotions and don’t let them flow with the environment.

………………………………………………………………………………………..

Throughout life we come into contact with people. Sometimes we happen to have people in our lives who are very strong willed. They could be our close relatives like spouse or children. It will be a challenge and opportunity for us to learn and improve.

Some people could get into bad mood easily, like getting upset, irritated, disrespectful, picking on others, demanding, bossy, jealous, angry, or revengeful. You know their lives are in bad shape and they affect others wherever they go.

Conflicts are part of life and if we don’t learn how to deal with them, our lives could be miserable. Conflicts can destroy relationships, break up a family, cause someone to lose a job, cause street fights, or even murder, and wars. The interactions between people are extremely complicated and worth the time to learn.

We could give them an attitude, be mean to them, use some angry words to see if they will react positively :) Most likely they won’t. Some people like to whine, it might solve the problem, but most of the time, it won’t, or it will make the situation worse. It all depends on whom you are dealing with.

Sometimes, we just have to ignore other people’s attitudes, words, or actions, and pretend it never happened, and just show respect to them no matter what, just to make things work. It’s not easy, but it’s the correct way to do things.

Most of the time when we run into conflicts, we think we are right. Everyone thinks s/he is right and the other party is wrong. Simply telling them that they are wrong may not always solve the conflict. Most people react negatively to criticisms. The better choice is probably accepting others, their behavior, opinion, and just tolerate and don’t say anything negative. Meanwhile be respectful, courteous, appreciative, considerate, loving, and kind. Don’t ever hold grudge, be unforgiving, cold, cruel. Those kind of attitudes won’t solve the problem. If two people are cruel to each other, the conflict will just get worse. If you’ve been cold or cruel, repent and apologize, and change your attitude. Be humble and admit faults, and correct it. Just accept and forget all the wrongs other people did to you. Even if they do it again and again, just endure and forgive. Let them have their way if it’s not a big deal.

Family is an important part of life. 

For sure, this life is not always going to be easy. The longer you live, the more you’ll know. Sometimes, trying to be happy just won’t solve the problem. Situations like these are means to teach us to be humble, so we’ll know that we don’t have the power to solve the problem alone. Neither our parents nor our relatives/friends could help. And sometimes it’s not a simple thing that you could just forget or escape, for if you don’t deal with it, it will just get worse and you still have to face it later. This is the time that we need bend our knees and bow our heads, acknowledging that we can’t deal with the situation without help from above. Yea, millions of people throughout history have done so. Why not try it next time when you are in a case like this?

The list will grow:

The Earth’s size and corresponding gravity holds a thin layer of mostly nitrogen and oxygen gases, an atmosphere of the right mixture of gases to sustain plant, animal and human life. If Earth were smaller, an atmosphere would be impossible, like the planet Mercury. If Earth were larger, its atmosphere would contain free hydrogen, like Jupiter. The Earth’s size is perfect.

The Earth is located the right distance from the sun. Consider the temperature swings we encounter, roughly -30 degrees to +120 degrees. If the Earth were any further away from the sun, we would all freeze. Any closer and we would burn up. Even a fractional variance in the Earth’s position to the sun would make life on Earth impossible. The Earth remains this perfect distance from the sun while it rotates around the sun at a speed of nearly 67,000 mph. It is also rotating on its axis, allowing the entire surface of the Earth to be properly warmed and cooled every day.And our moon is the perfect size and distance from the Earth for its gravitational pull. The moon creates important ocean tides and movement so ocean waters do not stagnate, and yet our massive oceans are restrained from spilling over across the continents.

Water…colorless, odorless and without taste, and yet no living thing can survive without it. Plants, animals and human beings consist mostly of water (about two-thirds of the human body is water). You’ll see why the characteristics of water are uniquely suited to life:

It has an unusually high boiling point and freezing point. Water allows us to live in an environment of fluctuating temperature changes, while keeping our bodies a steady 98.6 degrees.

Water is a universal solvent. This property of water means that thousands of chemicals, minerals and nutrients can be carried throughout our bodies and into the smallest blood vessels.⁵Water is also chemically neutral. Without affecting the makeup of the substances it carries, water enables food, medicines and minerals to be absorbed and used by the body.

Water has a unique surface tension. Water in plants can therefore flow upward against gravity, bringing life-giving water and nutrients to the top of even the tallest trees.

Water freezes from the top down and floats, so fish can live in the winter.

Ninety-seven percent of the Earth’s water is in the oceans. But on our Earth, there is a system designed which removes salt from the water and then distributes that water throughout the globe. Evaporation takes the ocean waters, leaving the salt, and forms clouds which are easily moved by the wind to disperse water over the land, for vegetation, animals and people. It is a system of purification and supply that sustains life on this planet, a system of recycled and reused water.

The human brain…simultaneously processes an amazing amount of information. Your brain takes in all the colors and objects you see, the temperature around you, the pressure of your feet against the floor, the sounds around you, the dryness of your mouth, even the texture of your keyboard. Your brain holds and processes all your emotions, thoughts and memories. At the same time your brain keeps track of the ongoing functions of your body like your breathing pattern, eyelid movement, hunger and movement of the muscles in your hands.

The human brain processes more than a million messages a second.⁷ Your brain weighs the importance of all this data, filtering out the relatively unimportant. This screening function is what allows you to focus and operate effectively in your world. A brain that deals with more than a million pieces of information every second, while evaluating its importance and allowing you to act on the most pertinent information… did it come about just by chance? Was it merely biological causes, perfectly forming the right tissue, blood flow, neurons, structure? The brain functions differently than other organs. There is an intelligence to it, the ability to reason, to produce feelings, to dream and plan, to take action, and relate to other people. How does one explain the human brain?

This list will grow:

I still remember that strange feeling when my first baby was born. For many years I was alone, but all of a sudden, this little being came into this world and I was his Mother. I don’t know why I didn’t even question where he came from. I didn’t notice the significance of his coming into being. Now I think that’s the most amazing thing that a little baby appeared in 9 months of time from invisible to a full featured person.

Men can discover the laws of the universe and the building blocks of matter, but men can’t make laws that control the universe and men can’t build things out of nothing. Men can only use those laws and build things with something. Men tend to forget about these facts as they get “smarter”.

This universe follows certain laws, just like traffic rules control traffic, otherwise, it will be a chaos. Even though there are traffic rules, accidents can happen at times. That’s why we contribute things unexpected to be a matter of luck. But not all things happen randomly without reason. While we all know that traffic rules were made by people. Similarly why wouldn’t you think that laws of the universe were made by someone too?

We have confidence in that the day will come after the night is over. We don’t worry about flying off the surface of the earth while the earth rotates. We consider such laws as natural.

We know that watches can tell time because watch makers made them to do so; computers function as they should because computer engineers designed them so; airplanes fly because aerospace engineers designed them to fly. But most people wouldn’t believe the universe follows its laws because God made it so.

Why not question these things? Why not search for the truth?

Humans are making things each day and we see the process of creation. We see that all new things on earth were created by someone. If you believe in UFO, of course you believe that some alien created it. Why wouldn’t you believe that the earth, the moon, the sun, and the stars were also created by someone? Simply because they were created a long time ago doesn’t mean they have no creator. Don’t you see the intelligence in the function of the universe? Even if you believe rocks can turn into life, fish can turn into animal, or monkeys can become men, isn’t that something fascinating even just to think about?

Scientists openly agree that matter doesn’t disappear and everything comes from something.

Think about what’s sustaining our consciousness. When the heart is beating, the blood is flowing, the command center of our brain will allow us to think, feel, sense, and do things. As soon as the heart stops beating, the blood stops flowing, that amazing consciousness seem to disappear. How intelligent such design is. Now, even a computer, a watch, or an airplane have designers, why wouldn’t you suspect that humans have our own designer/creator too? How marvelous our designer is!

The most wonderful thing ever created are us, humans! We know we didn’t create ourselves. We are the most marvelous thing in this whole universe, whatever we know of so far. Our whole world is around our own consciousness, our ability to feel the joy and sorrow in life. We marvel at the things we created, be it airplanes, or rockets. Why don’t we marvel at ourselves, the highest creation of all? Why don’t we question who created us? When we don’t know, we contribute it to nature. Don’t you ever think how intelligent this nature is? Because you don’t know, you don’t bother to think, because you believe that even if you search, you won’t find the answer. That’s why you don’t search. But you know that creator is marvelous as you know how marvelous a creation, you, yourself are.

Now, the only one who ever claimed to be the creator of all things is Jesus. If I were you, and I didn’t believe in Jesus to be God, I would question why this young man who died 2000 years ago, his name is still around? His birth has divided human history throughout all nations in this world. No one has claimed to be God and stand true for so long as he did. Are millions of his followers all crazy and blind? I would check him out to see if his claim stands or not, for I’m curious about who created me. Doesn’t your own existence intrigues your mind the most? Don’t you question why you are so smart? Is it mere luck? Why not question? Why not seek for the true answer?

I still remember those days when I was a child, as soon as I woke up in the morning, I just started crying and didn’t know why. I felt bored many times when I was a child. I felt lonely many times after I grew up. I felt unhappy at times even though other people told me that I was lucky in my position. Finally I really wanted to make a change. So I started searching for an answer. As my mind started questioning and I searched, I learned some new tricks. Maybe not new to others, but new to me since I’m finally ready to adopt them.

Sometimes it might be hard to smile when burdens get heavier. As we were walking from our car to the church building this morning, I felt obligated to teach my daughter to smile. I told her that when she smiles at people, people will smile at her and they’ll be nicer. So she listened to me and started smiling. Then the whole morning she was pretty happy.

Imagine how nice it will be to walk into the street and see smiley faces everywhere. We smile when we meet people because we are considerate of others, and we ourselves like to be around happy people. We should be nice and kind to ourselves too. Being happy, or even smile when no one is around, is being kind to oneself. After all, no matter how bad it gets, there is always hope.

There was a fictitious man named Ah Q in old China. He was poor all his life, but he was always happy. Even when he was going to be executed, he still wanted his thumb print to be perfect and he didn’t seem to be sad. Of course it’s hard to do. But it wouldn’t help Cinderella for her to be upset all the time when she was mistreated by her step Mother and sisters. When burdens get heavier, we need to patiently endure, meanwhile we need to be nice, kind, and considerate to ourselves. We need to help our own spirit to be happy, to have hope.

As my understanding increases these days, I can spot the beauty of spirits around me more and more, when the person is considerate of others, patient, and can let go of the bad experiences in the past. I’m also watching relationships being destroyed when people are not considerate of others, not being able to view the situation from others’ standpoint, not controlling emotions, being revengeful and not letting go the past.

I’ve made mistakes of my own, but finally I’m seeing some light after questioning and searching. It just takes time and effort to learn to repent and forgive. I’m sure it took Cinderella much less time to stop crying and forgive her step relatives as she grew older. There are people who do mean things no matter who you are and where you go. Even one of the nicest persons I know of got treated meanly once in a while. After all these years, finally I learned the best thing to do is just to let it go since no one can change the past. Learn to be nice to myself and don’t let others affect the state of my spirit. Be kind to my spirit, help it to be happy, and hold on to the hope. Even if I were the only person left on this continent, I still need to smile and bring my spirit to hope and happiness, for being upset and feeling lonely is not going to help.

I heard a really nice speech about charity by brother Richard King recently. He mentioned about the words written on Mother Teresa’s door (or wall), originally composed by one of his friends. What’s left on my mind were ,”Be kind anyway. Do good any way.” Don’t let other people’s behavior stop us from doing good, for in the end, it’s between us and God, not between us and them.

When we are happy and have hope, we can bring happiness and hope to others. It’s mutually beneficial to all, anything we do that’s good.