There Must To Be More To Life Than This

The Magician's Greatest Pay

www.zlwinmagic.com

One of the greatest rewards for being a magician are the smiles, laughters and applause you get once you have entertain your audience truly. The picture here was taken at The Curve during one of my recent gig. This girl gave the nicest smile ever when she saw my magic.

Building Bridges Through Magic

www.zlwinmagic.com

Another fun thing about magic is that you get to meet different people; some down right nasty and some really really friendly. I met this group at Urbanattic, Capsquare. Nice people who just wants to have good fun. among them are two actors, Tony Eusoff and Jay.

Magic @ Zouk Club, Kuala Lumpur

www.zlwinmagic.com

Zlwin does walkabout close-up magic at Zouk every weekend. Look out for him if you are there to dance the night away!

The Watchmen

www.zlwin.com

Watchmen watches what no one watches and does what no one does. They would lay down their lives watching and protecting. They stand guard over the people that needs them but do not want them. They take up responsibilities which otherwise no one would want. Do you want to be a watchman? "What does it matter..." you ask.

Zlwin Chew - Magician, Minister.

www.zlwinmagic.com

Magic is something that seems like it goes against how the world works and it is us magicians who has the privilege to demonstrate it. There are no tricks in magic, only wonderment. – Zlwin Chew

Zlwin Chew’s New Website Is Launched!

www.zlwin.com

Zlwin has designed a new website and is no longer with Blogspot anymore. From today onwards, this site will be his official site where he will be posting his usual Christian devotional materials as well as some other stuff. Do drop by every now and then. And please bear with the upcoming and ongoing changes that will happen in this website. He is trying to improve it little by little as the each moon ends its shift and as he gains more knowledge on website designing. Have a good read! God bless!

Acts 20:24

www.zlwin.com

However , I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me – the task of testifying to the Gospel of God’s grace

The Worldwide Magician Directory

www.magician-directory.com

A worldwide directory of magicians. Thousands of magicians have their profile uploaded here as well as links to their websites. Visit the Magician Directory to find out more about your local magician.

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Saturday, March 28, 2009

Our 60 Earth Hour



John 1:5
The light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not understood it.



Are you switching off your light tonight in conjuction with the Earth Hour movement?
The world comes into a decision to switch off all lights in a bid to save the earth.



Do they not know that the earth is in need of light?
Do you know?
If yes, then what are you doing?


.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Hidup Melayu?







With one voice: Delegates shouting ‘Hidup Melayu’ with Umno’s top leaders during the opening of the joint assemblies on Tuesday.






There was a long article in the newspapers about the Umno's joint assemblies with the Wanita, Pemuda and Puteri divisions. Umno deputy president Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak gave a long speech encouraging them all to rise above the current storms and come back stronger. They credited the growth of Malaysia to Umno and spoke highly of how Umno has been the backbone of this country all these years.

What disturbed me was at the shouting of 'Hidup Melayu' at the opening.

Does that mean 'Mati Cina', 'Mati India', 'Mati Lain-lain' ?

How can leaders of this country shout such a thing? Does this not ring a threat to the other races in Malaysia?

Why so racist? Hmm... I wonder do the other races do such a thing at their gatherings and meetings and conventions. Maybe some do.

But certainly not us CHRISTIANS. We do not acknowledge such racist slogans and words of encouragement.

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Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Break My Heart For What Breaks Yours






Break my heart for what breaks Yours…
Everything I am for Your kingdom cause…

Above are the lyrics to the song “Hosanna”. It definitely rang clear in my ears last Sunday when I was at Kuala Lumpur for the Feeding The Poor Program.





Around 20 plus of us from Klang Young Adult Fellowship made a trip down to Grace Assembly Kuala Lumpur to attend their morning service, giving them support as well. Then in the afternoon around 1pm we went to the kitchen to prepare the food to feed the poor people from the streets of Kuala Lumpur. We were cramped into that small kitchen, preparing hundreds of packets of Nescafe+Milo drinks and also packing hundreds of food into Styrofoam boxes.

At 3pm, the church hall was turned into a free clinic for the poor. An elderly doctor came in and went to the small room-cum-clinic and then a registration table was set up outside the room. Then patients started pouring in. At first there were only about 10 patients, then as time passed, more and more came and soon the hall was filled with about 30 patients. All of them wore rugged clothing except for a few who were neatly dressed. Most of them were old people and some of them carried luggage bags with them. My guess was that all their life’s belongings were in it. There wasn’t a splendid smell though; the hall was kind of stinky. I can’t blame them, most, if not all, of them were from the streets and I bet they do not have the luxury to bathe even once a day.

Jeffrey Williams was one nice guy. He was the first to make the move to go and talk to these people. I saw him chatting with a Chinese man for quite some time. I stood and observed the people walking in and out and saw their behavior and took pity on them. Then I decided to do what Jesus would do. I walked towards a patient and started chatting with him and getting to know him. I regretted that my Mandarin language wasn’t that good so most of the time I could not understand what my Chinese friend was talking. However I managed to speak to 4 of them and prayed with them together with Jeffrey. Could remember three of their names; Ah Kong, Ah Yang and Ah Meng. Funny how Chinese like to call themselves “Ah something” hehe. They were nice people and I felt nice talking to them and hearing them talk about their street life.

One of them told me that he did not like how the Buddhist Temples treated him. He told me of his experiences where once a temple rejected him because he was poor and he did not have any money to buy joss stick to pray. This is true. Last time when I go overseas, I see that when we visit a temple and when we want to pray, we need to buy joss stick from the monk and pray. And the joss sticks cost quite a lot. Then he told me that he was thankful that the Church is doing such a favor for people like him.

He also told me that he knows that a lot of his friends would have ended their lives if the Church did not do this little thing to feed the poor and provide free medical to them.
Another man told me that he was robbed three weeks ago and got slashed in the arm. The free clinic gave him stitches and medicine. He also said he thanked Jesus for helping him so much. He even preached to me saying, “Jesus gave us two roads, one that leads to darkness and one to light. We must choose the light.” This man was an elderly man sleeping out in the streets.

Another man came up to Jeffrey and me and asked us to pray for him. Jeff prayed in Malay and then I continued in Mandarin. I could only prayed a little because my Mandarin vocabulary wasn’t good. However he was glad that we took time to pray with him. I also had the privilege to share my testimony to two of them and told them how much Jesus has helped me.

5pm came the time for us to go downstairs. When I went down I was shocked to see the number of people gathered there. All of them wore dirty clothing and they looked very unclean. The answer was obvious. These were people most of us regard as “sampah masyarakat” or “good for nothing people”. But I tell you something, Jesus loves them too. Just like how He loves you.

So sad to see an elderly Malay woman asking for another piece of banana when all we could give was only one for each person. So sad to see her walking away with a sad but thankful face. So sad to see elderly man and woman sitting down by the streets to eat their free meal consisting of a packet of rice with chicken and vegetables, a packet of drink and one piece of banana.

My heart broke when I saw this old lady hungrily chowing down on her meal by the roadside. She could be a grandmother by now. I wonder what happened when she was young. I bet you that she had dreams to have a family. I bet you that she had hopes to become successful in life and I bet you she did not dream to be in this kind of situation today. But… what happened? I do not know.

I wonder what was in their minds when they queued up to collect their free meal and their free clothing. Were they thinking, “Oh, how hopeless am I. How useless. I am a 40 year old man, but I am lining up here to collect free meals and clothes from youths half my age.” Don’t you think they feel humiliated and low? I bet some of them do, maybe all of them do.

Sigh. How I wish I could do more. How I wish I weren’t just stand there and taking pity on them without being able to help them one little bit.

Should I feel thankful for my life? Should I? I don’t think feeling thankful is what I should feel. I should be broken!

If every Christian would have meant what they sang in the song Hossana, “Break my heart for what breaks Yours. Everything I am for Your kingdom cause…” then I believe more will come to the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

Would we lay down our lives for kingdom cause? Who wants to work with these people in the streets and help them? Who would? Not many.

Would you?

What breaks God’s heart is to see his people suffering. To see his people living luxurious lives not giving a damn bit about a higher calling in their lives. What breaks the heart of God is when his children do not have a heart for the lost souls and instead putting self-indulgence as the center of their lives.

2 Thessalonians 3:5
May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.



Jeffrey Williams i fourth from the left.


The people getting their food.




Free clothes for them.


This old lady moved me. So sad.



The joy of getting a little blessing.





What is he carrying? It is more than a discarded piece of card board. It is his bed. I can't help then but to wonder where is his home...

What more could we do? Can we continue doing this until the end of days? Should we? What do you think?

Thursday, March 19, 2009

The Watchmen









The comic-based movie Watchmen is one movie not for the action-seeking, Spiderman and Superman fans. And it is definitely not for kids! Some kids may be bugging their parents to bring them to the movie but I warn you that they will be disappointed. Among some of the reasons are, the movie is too deep for the understanding of a child, and there is too much sexual scenes, especially showing the nudity of the male frontal parts by the revered Dr. Manhattan.










This movie is for those who listen intently throughout the movie. If you go there to criticize the nonsense in that movie, you will be disappointed. As I was watching the movie last night I did not understand what was happening (as most western films nowadays are) until the end. And there was a twist at the end.

Read no further unless you plan to watch the movie.

The whole story revolves around The Watchmen taking up the responsibilities to save the world and to make it a better place. The setting was such; America is at the brink of a nuclear war with Russia. Russia has a huge number of nuclear warheads ready to be fed to America. If 99% of the warheads could be stopped, the 1% that is left out can destroy the world as well. America’s only hope was in the god-like being Dr. Manhattan, who became who he is because of a nuclear accident years ago. He is so powerful that people revered him as a god.

To cut the story short, Adrian aka Ozymandias was one of the smartest man on earth and he came up with a devious plan to end the world war and to create peace. But in order to do so, a lot of things have to be sacrificed, including the lives of millions of New-Yorkers.

Adrian, in the beginning, has already mastered the whole plan. He tricked Dr. Manhattan into creating for him a nuclear reactor that can provide free energy to the world. He planned the murder of The Comedian as well as the failed assassination of himself. He also carefully and smartly hurt Dr. Manhattan and made him exile to Mars so that Adrian has time to carry out his plan. Towards the end of the movie we see that Adrian released the nuclear energy to destroy New York and killed millions of people. The attack was made to be seen as tough it was Dr. Manhattan who did it.

Just about the time where we were going to judge Adrian for his wrong and mass murder, we saw something shocking. On international television, president of America, Richard Nixon, was declaring that America is not working hands in hands with Russia and the whole world to fight the new enemy of the world – Dr. Manhattan. Richard Nixon said that America and Russia has put away their past affairs and hatred and now are willing to work together. When I saw that part of the movie, everything started to come into place.

Ozymandias had to kill The Comedian because The Comedian might destroy his plan.
Ozymandias had to toxic Dr. Manhattan’s close friends with cancerous gas so that America would blame Dr. Manhattan for “killing” his own friends. And this will grieve Dr. Manhattan enough to leave the world and do not care about it anymore. (so that Adrian’s plans can succeed without interference from Dr. Manhattan)
Ozymandias had to kill his co-workers because he did not want to risk them revealing the plan to the world.
Ozymandias had to destroy New York City with millions of people in it so that America and Russia would come together peacefully to fight the “new enemy”.

If Ozymandias did not do all these things, America would have been destroyed by Russia's nuclear warheads.

The Watchmen have to sacrifice their lives for a higher purpose, a higher call. One of the Watchmen, Rorschach, did not want to compromise what he believes in – justice. And he threatened to tell the world what actually happened and what Adrian did. If the world were to know that Adrian and the other Watchmen were behind this plan and mass murder, Russia and America would wage war once more and there will not be peace in the world. So Dr. Manhattan had no choice but to kill his friend and crime-fighter, Rorshach.

Dr. Manhattan now is the world's number one enemy even though he did not do any wrong. Dr. Manhattan chooses to keep quiet about it, knowing that he has now lost his friendship with the whole world. He chose to exile himself quietly somewhere in the universe, unseen but not forgotten. What a sacrifice!

So what is your verdict?

In Jeremy Bentham’s theory of Utilitarianism, he states that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its contribution to overall utility. It is a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome. So what is your opinion about this movie judging from the utilitarianism viewpoint? What would you do?

This movie poses a question so easy to answer yet so hard, “What is the right thing to do?”

.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Growing On Rocks






The picture above was taken last year when I went for my diving trip to Phuket with Pastor John and a few others. It was at one of our dive sites, Racha Rai. What fascinated me was how two coconut trees and another huge tree can grow on nothing but rocks!

Let me give you a bigger picture. The rocks that you see in the picture are a pile of rocks right in the middle of a huge sea! And that pile of rock make up a small island. And that small island has nothing on it except rocks. The small island was our dive site. Its’ size is just about two basketball courts and on it are just rocks.

And on that small island of rocks are two fully grown coconut trees.






Luke 6:46-49
“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”


I can’t help but to link the verse above with the picture I took of the coconut trees on rocks.

Can you imagine how strong the wind can be in the middle of an open sea? Can you imagine the power of the wind that the two coconut trees have to overcome? Can you also imagine the huge waves splashing against the rocks and trees during bad weather? Do you know how thin and “fragile” a coconut tree is? And given a location like that, right in the middle of the ocean, I am certain that there are a lot of natural elements going against the coconut trees and giving the trees a really tough time.

The trees still grew.

Look at the other picture with of the huge tree (scroll down). Can you see the effects of nature on it? The tree’s branches are all facing one direction and most of its leaves are gone. That shows how much wind and storm the tree have gone through. Yet it is still standing strong and proud.

What Jesus said about building your foundation on rocks is so true. When you have your house built on rocks, the wind and torrents and storms will not tear you down. But if you build it on sand, you are a goner.

The teachings of Jesus are so simple and true even nature is inspired by them.

What about you?





    Man In The Mirror

    . A very nice song from the late Michael Jackson. "If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change."

    Shout It Out


    ZlwinMagic

    About Zlwin Chew

    He is a person who is sold out for Jesus. Nothing can move him once he has set his mind on doing and achieving something. Once he is set for one thing, no one can tell him otherwise.

    He blogs, but he blogs differently. The world blogs about themselves, nothing but me, myself and I. But Zlwin Chew blogs his God. He believes that a blog is a powerful medium in which one can tell the world about what He, Himself and God has done in me, meself and I. God needs to be glorified, even online. The world needs to hear what it does not want to hear but need to hear. The world need to know what it does not want to know but need to know.

    Zlwin Chew is also a magician who has a heart and passion to enhance his Gospel sharing with the aid of magical effects and illusions. His magic portfolio can be found at http://www.zlwinmagic.com/

    He loves photography as well. Capturing time in frames is his passion. His photography blog can be found at http://www.zlwinchew.blogspot.com/

    He is radical. He wants to be radical. He wants to be different. Because everyone thinks outside of the box, he thinks inside of the box. He is different. And he does not care how people view him. He only cares how God views him. Zlwin Chew is a Jesus Freak.

    And he dare you to do something radical. He dare you to...

    BLOG GOD...