Welcome dear learners, to yet another video on the topic human resource management. My name is Chainika Senapati from the discipline of Maniram Devan School of Management Krishna Kanta Hondikoi State of the University. So this topic has been divided into two video parts. So let us now discuss what we are going to discuss in this video and also in the second part of the video. So after going through both the videos, you will be able to describe the concept of human resource management, outline the evolution of human resource management, elaborate on the functions of human resource management. We will also discuss about the role of HR executives in an organization and also lastly we will discuss about and explain the challenges of human resource management. So human resource management is a management function involving procurement of suitable human resources, train and develop their competencies, motivate them, reward them effectively and create an urge in them to be a part of the management team whose aim should be rendered, dedicated, committed service for the success and growth of the organization. This is the first video on the topic human resource management and in this video we will discuss as I have already said about the importance of human resource management for an organization as well as the evolution of human resource management. Let us first discuss about the concept of human resource management. We know that people are the vital element in an organization. Without them an organization cannot be run. They are known as a human resource which mean an asset or wealth that can be drawn upon for aid as and when required. Human resource are the source of strength, ability, competence, skill, creativity, knowledge, values, talent, efficiency. They have the decision making power and enthusiasm and so and so forth. These qualities of human resource should be developed so that they can be effectively utilized for accomplishment of organizational, individual and societal objectives. Human resource management means managing people and it includes human resource planning, job analysis, job design, acquisition, training and development, compensation and benefits and so and so forth. Right placement of people in the right job is very essential for an organization for also the human resource manager so because it views people as a vital social capital and moreover human resource management emphases the development and maintenance of employee of an organization as well as provides an ample of opportunities for their career advancement along with their timely counseling. So dear learners let us now discuss about the evolution of human resource management. There is a close relationship between human resource management and depth of management as a whole. Although the concept of human resource management is new but its practice has been quite old. In India the emergence of human resource management can be traced back in the year 1920s with the introduction of the concept of labor welfare in the factories in India. Now let us discuss briefly about the history of evolution of human resource management. First here we have to talk about the trade union movement era. The trade union act 1926 was passed and workers started associating themselves with the trade unions to safeguard and protect their rights. Next is the social responsibility era. During the 20th century the outlook towards the workers changed and they are not treated as you know mere money generating resources but as a humanistic approach was shown towards the workers. Then let us discuss about the scientific management era. Here Frederick Winslaw Taylor was the father of scientific management and introduced the concept of scientific management in the United States of America early in the 20th century. Taylor developed some principles of scientific management which can be jotted out here are the development and use of scientific methods in setting work standards, determining a fair day's work and the best way of doing work. Then scientific selection and placement of workers best suited to perform the various tasks and provisions for their training and development. Then time study to analyze and measure the time taken in doing the various elements of a job. Then motion study which involves you know close observation of the movements required to perform a job. Then the standardization of tools, equipments and machinery and working conditions. Then incentive wages plan with you know differential piece rate of wages for efficient and inefficient workers. Then let us discuss about the human relations era. During the 1920s and 1930s many researchers felt that human resource management should be recognized the workers as a human being having their feelings, attitudes and needs. This era is marked by the contribution of Elton Mayo and his associates for his famous experiments at the Hotron plant which took place in the year 1924 to 1932 of the western electric company in the USA. Their major findings were physical environment at the workplace do not have any material impact on the efficiency of the worker. Then favorable attitudes of the workers and work team towards their work were more important factors. Then employee groups based on social interaction and common interest exercise a strong influence on workers performance. Then workers cannot be motivated solely by the economic reward only. More important motivators are job security, job recognition then right to express their opinion on the matters related to them. So the human relations era viewed the modern organization as a social system. Then comes the behavioral science era. The behavioral approach to human resource management is based on the findings of intensive research carried out by the several behavioral scientists across the world. The major areas of contribution of this era are motivation, leadership, communication, organization change, organization development. These are some of the important highlights of the approach. So this era has emphasized more on the individual behavior and group behavior. The informal leadership is taken as more important than the formal leadership than people who does not dislike work but the job should be made interesting enough so that it acts as a source of motivation today. Then comes the system approach. The system approach can be defined as an organized and complex whole and assembling or con. Then comes the system approach. This system approach is defined as an organized and complex whole or assembling or combination of things or parts forming a complex unitary whole. The parts are known as subsystems and they are interdependent. They are interrelated and interact with each other and are not static at all. This system approach consists of many subsystems or you may can say elements which are separate entities or units. All the subsystems are interrelated to one another as I have said. Then proper and timely communication are needed to facilitate interaction between the elements and the interaction between the elements should lead to achievement of the organizational goal. Then let us discuss the contingency approach. This approach to management is based on the assumption that there is no single best way of practicing management which perfectly fits into all types of situations. Depending upon the situation, the way of management also differs. Therefore, this approach is called sometimes situational approach. A particular approach to management which best fits into a particular situation and yields fruitful and productive results not necessarily will yield some results in a different situation. Thus, this approach gives stress on the fact that there is no one universal way of managing in all the situation. Therefore, it is imperative for managers to analyze the things in different situations and then use the best approach for the best result. So dear learners, with this, we have come to the end of this first part of the video on the topic human resource management. And in the second part of the video, we will discuss about the functions of management. We will also discuss about the role of HR executives in an organization and also we will discuss about challenges of human resource management. Thank you for watching this video.


This panel is focusing more on the civil society perspective in the whole low emissions rural development planning and implementation. Next slide, please. All of the panelists in this session are members of the founding members of the Sustainable Tropics Alliance, which is a strategic partnership of independent non-governmental organizations that are drawing on research, multi-stakeholder engagement and local knowledge to develop alternative low-emission rural development models in the tropics. The representatives are from the Instituto de Bien Comune in Peru, the Greenbelt Movement in Kenya, the Earth Innovation Institute in various countries, the Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental de Amazonia, Pro Natura Sur in Mexico, and also we have collaboration from the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development, which is based in the UK. The founding concept of this alliance is that civil society groups play a really important role in facilitating and fostering development conservation and climate change and mitigation and adaptation strategies, and that they can play a really important role in helping to bridge, for example, changes in political regimes at regional and national levels, that they can help to interpret international and national regulations and mechanisms for the local level and so on and so forth. So that's really the founding concept here. What I also wanted to highlight is that we have prepared a report that you'll see back there at the back table, or you can also download it online if you don't want to carry lots of papers around, on fostering low-emission rural development from the ground up, and this is a summary of progress towards low emissions rural development in eight regions, or as I'm going to call it from now on, led R. This map here just gives you an overview of the eight regions that we covered in the report for now, although our colleagues and partners work in several other regions as well. You can see, and we're not going to go into details, but we've tried to compile statistics on deforestation rates in those regions, and you know, what I want to highlight here is that actually only a couple of these states, provinces, or other regions we've also defined our regions in terms of watershed landscapes. Only some of them actually have targets and reference levels already for how to reduce deforestation in these regions. Most of the regions also are not benefiting from really well-developed and publicly available monitoring systems, and so that's still a real setback for many of the regions. So what I'm going to do is just highlight a couple of the main points of our report, and then I'm going to let our panelists talk about some of the details in the individual regions. So just to give you an overview of what the main causes of deforestation in these regions are, they're not surprising perhaps, but what we did try to do is break them out by the scale at which they're really taking place, and across regions, even the ones where, like Mato Grosso in Brazil, where it's known for large-scale agriculture being a driver of deforestation, actually, what we find is that smallholder deforestation activities related to livestock and agriculture or domestic fuel-wood harvest and so on are still among the most important nationally and regionally, partly because those stakeholders are really still not being engaged in sustainable development or red strategies and so on and so forth. And so that's a real gap that we identified, that there needs to be more finance incentives programs being directed to those groups because they're really the ones who need the help the most, and will continue to have to rely on these natural resources. You know, you can also see that there's sort of a combination of factors that's much broader at these national and regional levels, but especially the regional level, and that's one reason that we think it's so important to focus on these smaller landscapes and not just at national and international levels. We also tried to look at the stakeholder dynamics in each region. So how much power does each group in the region have to actually affect decision-making versus the impact that that group is having on deforestation? As you can imagine, there's quite a range in the regions, but on average what we found is that government, large-scale agriculture or extraction type of businesses and public finance tended to have the biggest impact on deforestation as well as the highest levels of power in most regions. As I just mentioned, small holders tended to have the most amount of impact in regions, but it varies very widely how much decision-making power they actually have. And so again, I would just want to reiterate how important it is to engage those stakeholders. Then you can see in general here that, you know, there are actually a lot of stakeholders who need to be involved in in multi-stakeholder discussions of low emissions real development planning, but overall what we found is that these are very patchy in their progress. While most of our colleagues and many of their partners are developing such processes, they don't necessarily across the board include all of the actors that need to be there in effective ways. Finally, just a quick assessment of progress towards lead R in these regions. You can see very few of the regions would be assessed as being very advanced in their progress. ACRE, as has been mentioned here and in many other panels at the official COP venue, at the Pabellón de Bosques, is the most advanced jurisdiction in making progress towards an integrated plan for low emissions real development that focuses on climate and well-being and so on. But many of our regions are also making important progress in those areas. And I'm going to let our panelists now give us an idea of some of the challenges and opportunities in their regions and then we'll have some questions and as well as questions from the audience. So first, I would like to ask Ani Alenkar from the Instituto de Pesquiza Ambiental da Amazônia in Brazil to give us a little bit of an overview of their work in ACRE and Mato Grosso. She's the director of the Amazon Scenarios program at IPAM. The next set of slides, please. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the invitation. I think it's been great to have participated on this alliance and sharing so many thoughts and experiences among our regions. I'd like to initiate my five-minute contribution to this discussion, talking about the main barriers that we face on these study regions, which are ACRE State and Mato Grosso State, that we face on this work. And I'd like to highlight that we are partnering with Earth Innovation in the strategy to foster LEDAR in those two states in the Brazilian Amazon. So the main barriers in ACRE would be, I mean, the highway expansions and paving and lack of positive incentive to farmers, engage the producers like large, medium and small-scale, mainly producers, cattle-wrenching producers into LEDAR and engage also local governments into this process of LEDAR. IPAM and EII are working in five different strategies to achieve and to foster dialogue to achieve LEDAR on these states. The first one is to actually help strengthening the state programs and also to implement forest code. To help also to develop, I mean, as Carol Ranche is one of the main, how can I say, driver of the forestation, we are helping to develop these states to develop sub-programs that are linked to the red strategy for the states. We are engaging, as Dan mentioned, private sector on dialogues, like multisectorial dialogues. We are also engaging producers, like cattle-wrenching producers, mostly on specific, how can I say, dialogue with sub-programs to intensification sub-programs. We are also engaging settlers in these programs. And finally, we are also working very closely with municipal programs to strengthen their governance on these issues. So I think those are the main elements that we are tackling on our region. And the main opportunities on that, I mean, ACRI is by far the state that is taking a lead on many of the things as Claudia presented. ACRI has the opportunity to have, like, California red provisions and ACRI has already the red early movers support. Although there are some difficulties in terms of cattle industry in ACRI, but we are working very closely with Danji, which was presented first, in trying to come up with a sub-program that is linked with the CISA so can actually support cattle-wrenching industry in ACRI, which are mainly smallholders. Yeah, I think that we do have a main, just to end, we do have a main, how can I say, challenge, which I think is to connect all the way from smallholders to large commodity industries and to connect states all the way from municipal to states and national governments' strategies on red. So if we can integrate this multi-scale approach, I think we will be very advanced on LEDAR and this is what we are trying to do in ACRI and Mato Grosso, like supporting those governments, local state governments, supporting those main stakeholders that are like one, have very important role on driving deforestation and also can have a very important role on reducing deforestation. Thank you. Wonderful, thank you, Annie. Next I would like to invite Dr. Margarita Benavides from the Instituto del Bien Comune. She is the Deputy Director of the Institute and she will present on the Pachitea watershed work that they are carrying out. Thank you. Artura Boscoza has been decreasing through the years while in 2000, 82% of the basin had forest and in 2010 it has decreased to 74%. There is a strong deforestation, fast deforestation, more than anything by agricultural and livestock expansion. The area has 100,000 inhabitants that belong to all these Amarillo mosaics, they are native communities that belong to four different indigenous peoples. Then there are small farmers, migrants from the Sierra and there are also medium and small farmers that come from a German immigration from the 19th century. There are four protected natural areas, the largest is the communal reserve in the Sierra that has more than 800,000 hectares and several areas of local conservation and the entire province of Oxapampa has been recognized as a biosphere reserve and apart from that there is forest extraction and mining in various areas of the area and the exploitation of hydrocarbons that affect communities and also some protected natural areas. The strategies that IBC is following with allies in the basin to take forward this development proposal with low carbon emissions, rural development with low carbon emissions are the following, creating institutional governance strategies for fisheries, forests, conservation and water management in the basin. For that, we are promoting local systems of environmental management and environmental commissions of 13 district municipalities and two provincial municipalities and creating local committees of monitoring and monitoring. We are supporting planning and development of the provincial municipalities to define the rights of property and appropriate and sustainable use of resources with a long-term vision. We are contributing to the functioning of the Committee of Management of the Biosphere Reserve in Oxapampa, in Yanish as a place of participation of multiple actors for the planning of sustainable use of the basin. We are trying to establish with 13 district municipalities the main community, as well as with the provincial and regional governments and the National Water Authority to achieve sustainable use and management of the basin. We are supporting the native communities in the elaboration of their plans for the good living in the territorial management and governance with a vision of the basin and articulating them to the government plans of the local municipalities. As for the conservation of the landscape and the forests, we are supporting the Campecina de Huachón community which is in the high parts of the Cordillera to establish its private conservation area. Also, a conservation area with the municipality of Chontabamba and we are working with the Comité de Gestión de la Reserva Comunale El Sira to improve the management of the reserve. We are spreading and analyzing with the different actors the forestry history in the area in order to create plans to avoid forestry. As for sustainable development through the use of resources, we are taking initiatives to produce clean water creating reciprocal agreements between land and forest owners where water is produced and the consumers of water through the municipalities of Oxabamba, Chontabamba and Chorobamba and we are working with the communities to recover the rivers of the rivers with forest species. We are also contributing with communities and small owners to establish fishing agreements and the committee of surveillance recognized by local governments. We are at the level of promoting the participation and respect of the individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples in the different instances of government and dialogue. We are reinforcing the participation of its associations as well as the application of a previous consultation that is obligated by law in Peru in front of extractive activities that affect its territories. We are also supporting to conclude the titles of the native communities of the area. The incidence is at the level of local, regional and national governments so that they reinforce and implement the laws and control in relation to the TALA and illegal mining and that the regulation of fishing by adapting it to the specificities and needs of the Amazon. The greatest risks to reach a transition to a development with low emissions of carbon are the dominant vision of governments and the most powerful actors in the region that influence projects of public and private investment in the construction of roads and the expansion of agriculture and livestock with a short-term vision and without giving the relevance that forests, water and climate change are required. In that context there is a tendency to weaken the environmental standards and the legal security of indigenous territories and the protected natural areas in favor of extractive activities. As you can see our work is at the local and regional level with local governments with communities little by little we will have to work with small individual producers but they need to be associated so it becomes quite difficult so we have to promote the association of the small producers. Thank you very much. Next I would like to invite Bernadena Stenny from Earth Innovation Institute in Indonesia. Stenny is a research associate with the institute but also a leading environmental and community rights lawyer and leader in Indonesia. Go ahead, Stenny. Thank you, Claudia. I'll start my presentation with link to the previous question regarding the monitoring system which is we are now developing on Indonesia and we are working on in Central Kalimantan in two districts and we are now trying to increase our influence at the provincial level which is I think previously mentioned that Governor Teras Narang is one of the key governor leading in a governor climate task force and have a commitment to also reduce deforestation in provincial level and support the national commitment to reduce deforestation 26% and 41% as already stated by Indonesian government many times. I'm going to start with one of the key challenges that we are facing in Indonesia is to monitor the small holders' farmers where many, many times people are talking about but it's quite difficult to find where exactly they are how actually the challenges they face are relatively huge for the production of oil pump in especially in Central Kalimantan and we really need to see actually how the link between these small holders and the big companies so that's one of the key challenge and the second one is because those small holders' farmers also related to the policy reform we are trying to see how actually the issue on land tenure has been dealt with at the very small scale and try to see based on those cases link up to the policy reform at the provincial and the national level and the another challenge is also because in consistency in policies like I think not only Indonesia maybe in other countries also and the also the issue of incentives that is now not directly reaching to the national level including those small holders' farmers have no access actually to the finance and these are the barriers that we are now facing on and we are trying to see how these barriers we start with dealing with the monitoring system at the provincial level and at the same time we also see the opportunity that because the new government now new regime President Joko Widodo is having I think quite strong enough commitment to still continue to support the international trade commitment and it's already happening just recently that they will support it to continue and also it's good to see that I think my colleague before Minasetra has said that in terms of land tenure Indonesia just recently had a constitutional court decision that support the customer so these are the things that barriers and opportunities that we are working as a basis for having a monitoring system and why it matters I think we all know here that monitoring system is a way to also see how the rules and regulations implemented also to monitor how the companies committed to reduce the deforestation and also feedback to the policy and one of the crucial things to see actually to see where exactly those small holders farmers are and what are the key challenges they face and these are the needs that why and the background why we set up the monitoring system and we have just recently launched the system at the district level in Kotawaringin Barat and we hope that based on the new law we just recently have a new law on the regional government it's also support the provincial government's role to continue supervision and monitoring at the district and provincial level it's quite strong and we hope that in the next work we can use those laws as a basis for our continued work thank you thank you very much next I would like to ask Jose Antonio Montero from the Pro Natura Sur in Chiapas, Mexico to tell us a little bit about their work there he is the leader of public policy programs at Pro Natura Sur thank you Claudia thank you all for coming I brought a presentation in English but fortunately there is a translation I can speak a little more fluently and say in less time so let's start by explaining briefly the work of Pro Natura Sur in Chiapas with the process of real development of emissions where Pro Natura is trying to boost with the local communities and with the federal and state governments the alignment of public policies to improve the territorial development and to establish a synergy between all the actors to improve the reduction of emissions by degradation and deforestation and how to improve the territorial development in the field of agriculture and livestock in Chiapas we have a legal and institutional structure that allows the alignment of public policies to adapt and mitigate emissions and adaptation to climate change this is the climate change law environmental law and the sustainable rural development law these three laws generate a general and sufficient to align public policies and in such a way that these legal elements have the structure of an international coordination commission and the program of the action plan for climate change of the state of Chiapas however we find some problems like a dense public structure we have about 19,000 small communities and it is very difficult to work with all of them because it is not the same to work with small owners who work and align 19,000 communities at the same time another barrier is that sectors have a tendency to work in their own goals in their own results and this complicates the fact that all can be articulated in a institutional synergy that works for the rural development of emissions and another problem is that the risks is that the increase of some of the crops like the oil palm has grown about 189% in 10 years, 30,000 hectares sorry, 10,000 hectares now we have about 40,000 hectares one of the risks that this does not work is that in another 10 years we have a growth of the oil palm for example up to 100,000 hectares which also increases the earnings with the subsequent deforestation and of course the increase of the emissions in Chiapas in this moment there are about 57% of the emissions of the state of Chiapas are in the agricultural sector there are about 47,000,000 tons of CO2 equivalent which is in comparison with other states of the republic thank you Pepe next if I can pull it up I would like to invite Charles Mwangi who is the Senior Program Officer for Climate Change and Corporates at Greenbelt Movement to tell us a little bit about their work in the future of Kenya thank you so much I'm tempted to say good evening but then I realize I'm in South America because back at home it's late in the evening so good morning and welcome to Kenya I should tell you that Kenya is one out of 53 countries in Africa and we have a total of 58 million hectares but what is most interesting is the fact that out of the 59 million hectares there is only 6.8% actually we used to talk about 1.7% but now we have included the woodrads to raise that particular percentage to 6.8% the government has a vision of raising that one to 10% and that is what the Greenbelt Movement is working with the government to actually raise that and we talk about the effects of climate change they are very real in Kenya especially because I've said 8% is actually in arid and semi-arid areas and the Greenbelt Movement has been working towards helping the government achieve rural emission, rural development since 1977 and that is actually where we actually headed but I should actually say that we have 5 main water towers in the country and that is exactly where we are actually focusing and those 5 main water towers are actually the towers that actually support the economy of our country the ones that are actually being shown on the screen and as a Greenbelt Movement we have included a watershed based approach for us to be able to tackle the effects of climate change using a water based approach whereby we sent an identified critical water towers and critical water shades that we want to work on so that we can actually be able to achieve this low emission kind of rural development but I should actually say that there are several barriers that bring about the issues of not being able to address climate change issues and that is actually in low emission rural development and that is actually governance governance is a big problem in Kenya of course we have very good policies nice policies but in the shells we really implement them and I should say that for a very long time the forest used to be seen as a government forest and communities never used to be allowed to control the forest but since 2005 out of the efforts of the Greenbelt Movement among other stakeholders in the forest the first act of 2005 that has been modified this year and that particular policy has now brought about participatory forest management and our communities are now engaging in terms of conserving the forest and we are training them we are capacity building them so that we can actually be able to achieve that because it has to be a bottom top approach I should also say that we have limited technical capacity in monitoring climate change and forests in so that that capacity is not to standard but the good thing here is that the government is cognizant of the fact that we need to move to low carbon kind of rural emission carbon development and we have programs that are coming up to help the country be able to come up with programs for monitoring I should state there is a program known as system for radio emission for Kenya one of its can in Africa and the government is being assisted to do that and the Greenbelt Movement is sitting up with that particular monitoring standard at the same time we have problems in most stakeholder processes that are not very well coordinated in Kenya we have so many parts of the machine working but of course we don't have harmony in terms of different stakeholders that are doing climate change work and conservation work but we actually trying as much as possible to bring so many stakeholders together so that we can actually be able to foster a common start on these but I should also say that there are some opportunities that we do have as a country and as a Greenbelt Movement we also think that one of those particular should I say opportunities for us to be able to achieve rural emission and rural development and one of them like I said we have the forest act 2005 modified in 2014 and I said it gives our communities a participatory light in conservation of the forest so we keep on training them so that they can actually be able to take up the responsibility and know how to manage the ecosystems without necessarily relying on the government to do so we also have national climate change action plan and sub component one of the national climate action plan actually co-organizes the country needs to take a low carbon pathway and that one is here with an advantage that we are taking so that we can actually be able to make sure that we have that direction we also have our Kenyan constitution 2010 we actually have a constitution we have what we call our constitution 2010 and that constitution actually outlines that we need to achieve 10% forest cover and I think it's a good opportunity that we can utilize to be able to achieve low emission and rural development in Kenya we use hydropower but we have not tapped it to 100% at the same time we have geothermal potential and this geothermal potential really is a big advantage for us to get that green energy without necessarily burning fossil fuels at the same time we also have green energy solutions and the government movement is working so hard to actually bring about these green energy solutions and we also have our branch institution or Garamatha Institute where we have WPWA program working on cook stoves and energy saving technologies solar panels and the like at the same time we also have what in fact was a climate change bill and I think it is one of the few programs I mean bills we have in Kenya it's in the parliament and once that particular program goes through or that bill goes through to become an act it's going to help us form a national coordinating office for climate change issues and that's also some of the opportunities we think we have and we can utilize to actually achieve low emission development gracias thank you very much Charles next we'd like to actually take some questions from the audience and while you're getting ready to ask your question I'm going to ask them one thing that I'd like each of them to comment on briefly namely I would like to know what you think is the most underappreciated aspect of trying to move multi-stakeholder processes related to these issues of low emissions real development forward what are the things that you feel like as you go to these conferences and meetings you're not hearing addressed enough or what's the most difficult Charles please go ahead like I said we have so many stakeholders that are working on climate change in the country but I must say that there are a lot of different people are doing different things and we actually don't have some kind of a forum that brings people together we only have few forums like the Kenya climate change working group we are made by that at the same time we have several other few forums whereby many people who are doing climate change can actually be able to come together but we think with the coming of the climate change art that is in parliament and other activities so we have to focus on one direction okay thank you anyone else from the group Well I think one of the aspects that have not been addressed precisely the alignment of public policies the agricultural sector with what Verdea a while ago the secretary of the media said in greening agro-pecuary policies. And we don't see here, for example, these sectors of agriculture represented. We are the environmentalists in these forests, but the agro-pecuary sector is not there. So we have to call them and associate ourselves with them. We have to see that they also have their own goals, but it is an alliance that we necessarily have to build. The agro-pecuary sector is fundamental to be able to transfer to a rural development of low emissions. Although, as I mentioned at the moment, there is a legal structure, the problem is how we implement all this legal structure in which there is a tendency to practice, to fulfill commitments separately from each sector, to fulfill their goals, their legal framework, but we are not used to working together, in coordination, and it is one of the steps that we necessarily have to take. Okay, thank you. Margarita, no, Ani. I think one of the main aspects that I feel that is not, is there in the debate, but is very hidden in the most international forums that talk about low emission rural development, are the role of small holders and how to integrate them in a more formal kind of market, globalized market in a way. I think that, at least in the Brazilian Amazon, about 30% of the deforestation is by small polygons and about 31% is within settlements. Amazonian settlements, which are mostly like small holders. So these people, it's very difficult to engage them, like in a formal way, they are marginally connected with international markets. So the incidents of policies that can take them to one path or the other is very strong. So to work with these people, we do have to work a lot with public policy. And another aspect that, into that, is the role of local governments on this issue. So I think that that connection of, like, kind of trying to bring international markets or make that link more formal in a way and mediated by public policy would be a key issue to drive deforestation down within the settlements in the Amazon. So I think that issue is not very well debated in the most, I mean, how can I say, international forums that talk about this issue. So I think this is one point. Thank you, Vane, Margarita. Bueno, en la región del Pachitea un tema es visiones diferentes de desarrollo. O sea, mientras que los inmigrantes colonos tienen una visión donde ven el bosque como símbolo de atraso, los indígenas que tienen el 18% del área bajo título o posesión y si sumamos las áreas naturales protegidas son el 60% tienen una visión diferente donde el bosque es esencial para su vida. Entonces lo que estamos aprovechando nosotros son trabajar con los gobiernos locales y provinciales que tienen estas comisiones ambientales, municipales donde deben participar los diferentes actores y estamos buscando a través de los planes del buen vivir de las comunidades su participación fuerte con propuestas dentro de esas comisiones. Por ejemplo, el ámbito de la reserva de biosfera es un ámbito interesante para los medianos y pequeños empresarios de la zona porque están usando ese sello para vender sus productos y también es un ámbito donde pueden estar los diferentes actores. Entonces estamos fortaleciendo esos ámbitos para que diferentes actores con intereses diferentes participen pero con un objetivo de buscar la sostenibilidad de la cuenca y en esos diálogos que los inmigrantes colonos también cambian su visión del desarrollo donde el bosque tiene una función esencial no solamente para la región, sino para el clima. Thank you very much, Magadita. Steny. Just want to add one more thing. I think one of the very important and strategic element to success the reduced deforestation at the not only national scale but also sub-national level in Indonesia is to maximize the engagement or maybe not engagement but leadership of sub-national government which is province and districts. I think too many times we see that all of discussions related to the either finance or you know schemes related to the finance are trapped into the bureaucratic discussions at the central government level which not really touch to the issues that those who has a power to give license on the ground which is district and provincial government have not been really engaged in the process and that's the key of why we should see the monitoring system at the jurisdictional level which is province and district to make sure that they are the ones that responsible to their own territory and they are the ones also that will be responsible to count for deforestation rejection and also at the same time we see how their commitments to to fulfill the rights of the indigenous peoples and small holders farmers that really need the support from the government's facility. So I think this one of the very key important point that we need to discuss on. Great. Thank you very much, Stini. Does anyone have any questions that they would like to ask the panelists? Gentlemen there in the 6th, 7th row. Is there a microphone for him? Thank you very much, facilitator. My name is Paul Mafabi from Uganda and these are very interesting presentations but just a few issues to reflect on. One of the issues is the capacity. I've not had in this discussion talking about the inadequate capacity for us even to do what they are proposing there but also the inappropriate technologies that encourage opening up of more lands so there's extensification instead of intensification. The other issue is about the political will and patronage. Our colleague from Kenya said yes, we have the good policies but is there political will to actually implement these policies? And we have had a situation where there's a trading forest for votes and this happens in a few countries. So how can we hold the leaders more accountable and how can we better empower the citizens to exercise their rights? And finally the issue of harmonizing mandates in many of our situations we find environment management is not given a higher priority in terms of resources and the competing sectors are given more resources. Agriculture is given more money and therefore it means that the environment which should be protected is not given the resources. So I just wanted to reflect on these and maybe ask the panel if they have any comments on these issues. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Are there any other questions that we could get out there? If not, we'll go ahead and answer. Okay. Anyone like to? Yes, Charles. Thank you so much. Our neighbor from Uganda. You are the neighbor of Kenya, by the way. So I want to start by the last question or the last comment he made about resources and the fact that environment is allocated limited resources when it comes to national budget. I remember he once heard a workshop for all African institutions dealing in forestry. And one thing that was coming up is that whenever it comes to accounting for the contribution of different sectors to the national GDP, the contribution of the forest is always underestimated. And a lot of reporting goes to manufacturing, it goes to water, but literally it's attributed to the forest. And therefore, when it comes now to actually sharing the resources for the management of this particular forest, at the same time we have the forest receiving very little amount of money for that because we don't really accurately report how the forest contributes to the GDP. And one of the issues that came up in that workshop is that we don't have forest economics, economists in Africa, in many countries. Many governments don't employ many forest economists. They don't think it's important. But at the high time we employ those forest economists so that they can actually be able to really account to precision the contribution of the forest to the GDP so that they can also receive resources. On the issue of holding our leaders accountable, that's very true. Like we said in Africa, of course, we need votes. And therefore, in many cases, if we talk about like removing people who are encroaching in the forest and you want to vote, you're not going to get them. So it's true, political view sometimes is not there and it depends on the people who are actually in power. But we keep imparting our communities because one thing we believe in, especially as a group of movement, we believe that for us to actually achieve development, we need to have good governance. We have to look at the environment and we have to look at peace. We call it the three-digit stool. Environment, peace, and governance can actually bring about development. So we employ communities so that they can actually be able to change the government, actually be able to give resources, actually be able to be accountable. Thank you. Thank you, Charles. Would anyone else like to address the question or reflect on it? I'd like to comment on something about it. Precisely one of the... it seems like one of the common problems globally is this disparity of budget between the agro-pecuary sector and the environmental sector. This policy of generating a food security is not necessarily translating into a sustainability in the production of food. And little by little, the environmental economy is generating the awareness that the environment is also a capital, that it is a resource that necessarily translates into economic aspects and that biodiversity, water, forests are also part of a capital that, since we have not worked to generate it and simply extract it, we are not giving enough value. This is where we also have to sensitize our political leaders and our localities. For example, in the case of Mexico, there is a lot of opposition from the common population for the environmental services, that is, to pay the water that I consume, there is a total resistance. And of course, as Charles said, since this is not popular, obviously it is also rejected by our political leaders that what they are looking for and what they need are direct votes. So we do have to to be aware of our society and our leaders in the sense that this conservationist of natural resources also brings us well-being. Perfect. I mean, someone else? Anyone else? Yeah, very quickly. I think you pointed out like very important issues. Well, in terms of capacity, I mean capacity is the basis of all. I think the governments in the Brazilian Amazon have been searching for partners to increase their capacity because, as Charles mentioned, money to invest in an environment agenda in Brazil is also very small compared to other sectors. Political will, well, we have a gradient of political will in Brazilian states, in the Amazon Brazilian states. I'm going to cite Acre, which is the, I mean, the most kid of our eyes. I don't know how to say that in Minha do Desolios. The poster child. Yeah, in that matters. I mean, they have a political will. They are like 15, since 1999, they are working on a forest-based economy development. So they are percursors of LEDAR. But they do face challenges, you know. So, I mean, still, like the resources are challenging capacity of local governments is a challenge. And the relationship with the federal government is a challenge. So there are a lot of challenges even if, even for the jurisdictions that are very advanced in this theme. Lastly, competing resource. Well, I mean, as Charlie has mentioned, environment has this much of money compared with other sectors. But it's funny because we have to suffer maybe from climate change like Sao Paulo now. People were drinking green juice from the torneras, the sink. It was not like real green juice but really bad water because of the drought that we faced in Sao Paulo. And so do we have to wait these extreme events to actually do something about climate change and to connect the Amazon with those issues, the deforestation with those issues? I mean, but it seems that even when we are facing very drastic events, a lot of fire in the Amazon, a lot of drought, a lot of lack of water, even facing that, it seems that the money that could be used to invest on forest-based economies, on low emission rural developed economies are being invested in adaptation of agriculture adaptation. I mean, and we need to expand that to other adaptation themes and groups and peoples and things like that. So I think the adaptation is one issue that is lacking in this debate as well. Great, thank you very much. We have maybe one minute of time that I'm going to take out of the next session because we started two minutes late. If there's another burning question, we could have one or two answers. There's one. Do we have a microphone? Thank you. Thank you very much. My name is Joy Hubernen. I'm with Field in London which is a supporting organization to the Sustainable Tropics Alliance. Our discussions here are happening in parallel with the negotiations at the Pente-Gonito on a new climate change agreement and various other international rules that relate very much to the issues that have been discussed here. Forests, the land sector generally also adaptation and other issues. There's a growing interest in those negotiations in the role that sub-national bodies, the sub-national level of governance can somehow play in implementing the future agreement. And I just wanted to briefly ask the panelists how you see or how you think international rules that are expanding in scope and extend the international rules relating to climate change, how those can best be integrated at the regional level? Thank you. Thank you, Joy. We have maybe less than a minute. So I'll just ask if maybe one or two of you could answer and then we'll try to have the rest of the discussion offline. Anyone? Margarita? Well, an international law that is the subject of the previous consultation based on the Convention 169 of the OIT was incorporated as a law in Peru. It was not necessary because it's on the constitutional level. But because of the protest that took place in 2009 of the Indians, precisely because the State took a series of initiatives in relation to its territory on hydrocarbons and other activities, a strong march and protest that lasted two periods, more or less two months each, and due to that, the previous consultation law was passed. And today it's being applied. Not 100% as one would like, but yes, the different sectors of the State are forced to apply and the previous consultation is being applied. So that's a case where an international legislation has begun to implement at different levels in the country. Okay, thank you very much. I'm getting signs that we need to finish up. So I think I want to thank everyone who participated, especially our panelists. You can catch them offline and read a little bit more detail in this report back there. Thank you very much.


Yes. Yeah, let's get started. So we were looking before the break at the parallels between Lucifer and Adam. Adam was created to be the guardian, the ruler of the earth, and Lucifer was created to be the guardian of the Holy Mount of God, and Lucifer was clothed, adorned in precious stones, and he was blameless in the same way Adam was clothed in the very glory of God, and he too was created holy. So they both were people of great status, and then this is what Satan did with himself, and now he wants to drag down Adam and Eve also to the same level as him. So if someone could read out for us, Ezekiel chapter 28 verses 16 to 18, please. 28, 16 to 18. Ezekiel chapter 28 verse 16 to 18.  From among the fairy stones, your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. I threw you to the earth and made a spectacle of you before kings, by your ministry. That should be enough. So we see that here in all of these verses, there is still a kind of parallel being drawn between the king of Tyre and Lucifer. So there are portions where it talks about the trade of the king of Tyre and all of that, but then you have other portions which are directly referring to Satan himself. Here it's talking about how Satan was driven in disgrace from the mount of God in the same way that Adam and Eve were driven out of the garden in disgrace. So it says, I expelled you, Garden Chirab, from among the fairy stones, and of course Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, and it says regarding Lucifer, you corrupted your wisdom. Okay, so he was very, very wise woman. In fact, what did we see the wording earlier? Here in verse 12, I think, yeah, verse 12, he was full of wisdom and perfect in beauty, but now he has corrupted his wisdom due to his pride in his splendor and his beauty. So he has corrupted his wisdom, and so now he wants to do the same thing to Adam and Eve, and so he brings this temptation before them. This is one couple who has always kept their eyes on the Lord. They have been completely dependent on the Lord. They know nothing. Whatever God says, they just simply accept it as little children, they submit to that, they obey Him and follow Him, and they are just carefree because they just simply do whatever God asks them to do. So their eyes are completely focused always on Him. But now Satan is making the offer and says, your eyes will be opened, something else will happen. Then you will know good and evil. You will have the knowledge of good and evil is what he says. And so when they choose that to accept that lie and when they eat of the fruit, their eyes are opened and they receive this knowledge of good and evil. And what is the first result of that? They discover this independence which they now have where they can make their own decisions about what is good and evil. What is that done? It has stripped them of the holiness of God. It has completely stripped them of the glory of God. They are just now left naked, helpless, nothing. I mean, they were rulers. They were clothed in glory. They had everything. And they were wise. Adam had the wisdom to correctly name all of creation. That was their status. And now that they have chosen to have their eyes opened and they no longer want to keep their eyes on God. Now they want to have their eyes open and they want to make their own decisions independently. And the first thing they understand is that it has stripped them of their dependence of God. It has stripped them of the glory that was theirs through Him. Now they have nothing.     So that's what they did to themselves. And one thing they realize is that humans, you know, they realize that this knowledge of good and evil, even though now they possess it on their own independently, they are not able to handle it correctly at all. I mean, yes, they may have the knowledge of good and evil now in their hands, but, you know, it says in Jonah chapter 4 verse 11 talking about the sinful people of Nineveh, it says, those 120,000 people, they don't even, they cannot even tell their right hand from their left. What did the knowledge of good and evil do for them? Nothing. If you try to function independently of God, you really are nothing. You really can do nothing. And so we were never meant to be independent. We were always meant, we were created to be dependent on Him, to be connected to Him, to abide in Him.  So now, after all this horrible mistake which Adam and Eve did, we have now been restored back to our, you know, earlier position. We've been given back what Adam had. I know all of it is not yet fulfilled. Partially, we have stepped into that. We will completely get that, you know, in the New Jerusalem when God restores all of mankind. Because right now, creation is still under the curse and we still see death and decay and all of that. So yes, I know that we are, it's not, we are not fully restored yet. Positionally, we are fully restored, of course. But when it comes to at a practical level, that will happen, I mean, on that, you know, at that time when God begins the next phase of eternity. So right now, of course, we already have the status positionally and who are we still positionally? Revelation chapter 1 verse 6, if someone could read out. Revelation 1 verse 6. Revelation chapter 1 verse 6. And has made us to be a kingdom and priest to serve his God and Father to him. Be glory and power forever and ever. So what have we now become? It says that we have become the Greek word Basileia and we have become priests. That word Basileia literally means kingdom and royal power. So now we are people with royal power, you know, operating his kingdom. So in that sense, we are kings and we are priests and now we are once more serving God the way Adam was meant to be serving God. Now we are once more in that position of serving God. And that is why, you know, Jesus says to the people who are kind of showing an interest in believing in him. Now they're kind of beginning to believe his words. And this is what Jesus says to them. John chapter 8 verses 31 to 36 is maybe we could just look at John chapter 8 verses 31 to 32. Yeah, if someone could read out John 8, 31 to 32, please. Jews who had believed him. Jesus said, if you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Okay, so to these Jews who have now started to believe him, he says to them, you know, you need to continue abiding in my word. He says, because if you abide in my word, then you will continue to get to know more and more of the truth. And the more and more you step into the truth, the more and more you will be set free. The more and more you'll get back to the status that you may, you know, you were actually meant to have. So it is so important to abide in my word. And then if we could also read out verses 34 to 36. John 8, 34 to 36. John 8 was 34 to 36. Jesus replied, I tell you the truth. Everyone who sins is a slave to sin.  So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed.  All right, yeah, yeah. So over here, you know, Jesus is saying that as long as you are, you know, don't abide in me, you will continue being slaves of sin. You see, independently on our own, we can never be what God has planned for us. For that complete dependence is needed. We need to abide in him. As we are abiding in him, we get to know his truth and we choose to believe that it is truth and we choose to hold on to it, submit to it, obey it. So even as we are doing that, the son sets us free. The son of God, he begins to set us free completely so that we are no longer under the control of sin and slaves to it. So we choose to believe in the word of God that it is 100% truth and we choose to abide in it, even if it seems difficult. We choose to do that because even as we are doing that, our mind gets renewed. It starts absorbing the truth of God and it starts functioning the way a child of God should be functioning. So you see, it's so important to abide. Only when you're abiding, your mind starts getting renewed.  So it's all interconnected and it all comes down to you believing that the word is truth, 100% truth and abiding in it and as you do that, you once again start becoming a king. You once again start, you know, having a dominion.  So it is so vital to believe in the truth of God's word. Ephesians 4, 20 to 23 also makes a very important statement regarding this. Ephesians 4, 20 to 23 please. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 20 to 23, you however did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of him and were thought in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were thought with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self which is being corrupted by its disciple desires to be made new in the attitude of your minds. Verse 24. Verse 24 and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Okay, so he says over here to these efficient believers, you have been taught in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. Okay, so because you choose to believe that what Jesus has said is true, on a daily basis you need to put off the old self because that old self was in fact crucified. It was crucified and dumped. Now you don't have to bring it back from the dead and put it on. It would be such a pathetic, it would be such a foolish thing to do.   So start putting on that newness of you and follow this truth, abide in this truth, submit to this truth and this is what he says in Ephesians 4, 24. Put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. So even as you choose to no longer bring back that dead crucified self and put on that dead body all over again, instead of doing that being so foolish as to do that, rather believe in the truth, abide in the truth of Jesus' words and even as you submit and abide in those words, you will start becoming once more like God, that righteousness of God and that holiness of God will begin to clothe you, adorn you and you will walk in the beauty of God's holiness. So these things will happen to us. So we can independently never be like God. We are meant to be dependent being. We are meant to abide in Him. And so it says in Revelation 3, 4 to 5, I think this is important. If someone could read out Revelation 3, 4 to 5 please. Revelation 3 verse 4 to 5. Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes.  He who overcomes will like them. Be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the Book of Life but will acknowledge his name before my father and his angels. So these white garments are not just going to be given away to anyone who just turns up. It says there are some people who have chosen to identify with me. So they are choosing, even in their difficult circumstances, in Sardis, they are still choosing to live in a way that is holy. They are not defiling the garments. So obviously this is all symbolic language. It's not talking about you walking in the mud and splashing your clothes. No, it's talking in a symbolic manner. So by keeping themselves holy, they are not defiling their garments. These are the people who have chosen to abide in Him in spite of the temptations of the world, in spite of the pressure which the world is exerting on them, in spite of the persecutions and the ridicule that they are facing. In spite of all of that, they are choosing to abide in Him. They are choosing to hold on to the truth because they know that if they hold on to the truth, then God will indeed reward them one day. And He says that such people, they are going to wear white garments on that day and they will walk with me in white. So if we refuse to abide and be dependent on Him and we say, I'm going to be independent and I'm going to do my own thing, you're going to be like Adam and Eve in that garden and they were stripped naked and they could see how shamed their position was. So on our own, we can have no dignity. On our own, we are nothing. When you're dependent on Him, when you abide in Him, His Holiness is imparted to you. He will grant you those white garments. He will clothe you in His Holiness and righteousness. Because on that day, you can't exactly take your designer, wear and stand over there in front of God's throne with those. You will be clothed in whatever He is giving you.  I don't mean that physically. Maybe physically, maybe metaphorically, I have no clue how things are going to work on that day, on Judgment Day.   You're going to be so naked, so exposed. But if you have chosen to abide in Him, you will be clothed in His Holiness and you will be a glorious sight to behold on that day. So it's all our choice, whether we are going to hold on to the truth of God's word, hold on to the truth of these things which are being revealed to us and take them seriously and stay in Him and abide in Him and enjoy the benefits of that. Because when we abide in Him, that is when the nature of God is going to be produced in us. That fruit is going to be produced. That is when we are going to become into the likeness of Christ. You can't say, I want to not be connected to God. I don't want to abide in the wine. That fruit of the nature of God is not going to be formed in you. You're not going to become into the likeness of Christ. So then on that day, what are you going to be clothed in? So these are extremely serious matters. These are matters of life and death. These are matters of eternity and damnation. Extremely serious things. So this is not something to be taken lightly. And so Galatians 3, 27, Paul is reminding his audience about who they are and what they are clothed in. Galatians 3, 27, if someone could read out. Galatians 3, 27, for all of you who were baptized into Christ, have clothed yourselves with Christ. I mean, we were baptized into Christ. We placed our faith in Him. We are now literally clothed in Christ. So please, you know, it's like as if he's saying, please let's abide in Christ. We are clothed in Him. If you choose not to abide in Christ and you want to give up that you're clothing, what are you left with?  So he says, you were baptized into Christ because you chose to believe. Now hold on to that. Continue being clothed in Christ. Let Him be your covering. Let Him be your righteousness. Let Him be your glory. So these are all things that he's pressing upon their hearts and so then he goes on, you know, there are so many passages which urges to stay clothed in Christ. You know, so, you know, we have Hebrews 12 versus 10 to 11, which talk about discipline and it says over there in Hebrews 12, 10 to 11, God disciplines us for our good in order that we may share in His holiness. Why is He disciplining us? Because He wants to share His holiness with us and so it says in verse 11 over there, you know, Hebrews 12, 11, no discipline seems pleasant at the time because it's a painful thing. No, so very frankly it says here no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. So abiding in the wine is going to be painful, very, very painful, but it will produce a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. So because we have that hope, because we believe in that truth, we choose to hold on, we choose to abide, we choose to be disciplined and that is why in the same way, in Matthew 5, 29 to 30, Matthew 5, 29 to 30, it says if your right eye is causing you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. Again, you know, it's a symbolic language and it's being used over here because it's bringing out the seriousness of what is being stated, you know, so if your right eye is causing you to stumble, you know, better for you to just pluck it out and throw it away because at least then your soul will be saved and you will be able to stand before the judgment of, you know, throne of God, secure in him. So it is something so important and so in the same way, symbolically if you're meant to, you know, pluck out your right eye, at a physical level, what are the things that you would need to pluck out?  If you're again and again being, you know, led by your friends into doing wrong sinful things, cut them off. So at a symbolic level, you're supposed to be, you know, pulling out your eye, but at a physical level, you know, you're commanded to treat your body as a holy temple of God. So at a physical level, you would not be plucking out your eye and it would not really not do you much good because the sin which is there in your unrenewed mind, the sin which is inhabiting your body is still going to be there anyway. So plucking out your eye is not going to be doing you much good, but it's symbolic language being used over here to bring out the seriousness of what is expected.  It's going to be a painful amputation.   This is a matter of eternity. It's a matter of, you know, either having to stand before the judgment thrown of God, naked and shamed or being clothed, you know, in the righteousness, white garments of God and, you know, being covered. I mean, these are serious issues. This is our future that we are talking about. So these are very, very serious matters. And therefore we choose to consecrate ourselves and walk blameless. And this is what Isaiah 57, 15 says, if someone could read out Isaiah 57 verse 15. Isaiah chapter 57 verse 15. So this is what the high and lofty one says, he who lives forever, whose name is holy. I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who's contrite and lowly in spirit to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contract. Yeah, it's so beautiful. The Lord says, you know, I dwell in the high and holy place. He's a God of holiness and he lives at a very high level. But he says, I also live with those who are contrite and humble and I will revive their spirit. You know, he says, to revive the spirit of the humble to revive the heart of the contrite ones. All this amputation is going to be very, very painful. But he says when someone is willing to humble themselves to that extent, where they are willing to cut off those things which are holding them back and where they're willing to show the reverence to me and removing all those contaminants which are contaminating their body and spirit and when they're honoring me in that way he says, even though I'm someone so high and I live in a high and holy place I will make my dwelling with these people, with these humble people who are willing to go to the extent of, you know, gouging out those things and throwing them away which are standing in the way and even though it is so painful they are doing it because they want to honor me, because they believe in my truth. They believe that one day they will indeed be rewarded for it because they have trusted me to that extent, I will make my dwelling with them not to crush them he says, but to revive their spirit but to revive their heart so we will be strengthened by the Lord we will not be left crushed and miserable you know, so God is there for us he will help us, but from our side we would need to humble ourselves we would need to amputate those things which are against him we would need to abide in him we would need to be, you know, consciously keep that connection strong by a daily cleansing so these are responsibilities that have been placed on our shoulders because then we can you know, regain what Adam lost through Jesus Christ we can now regain all that, you know that was lost by our original father human father, yeah Adam, so this one other aspect that we would need to look at which is involved in this whole abiding process and this whole humbling process one very, very, very important aspect of this whole abiding 1 Thessalonians chapter 3 verses 12 and 13 if someone could read out 1 Thessalonians 3 12 to 13 please 1 Thessalonians chapter 3 verse 12 to 13 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else just as ours does for you may he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones okay, so one very important aspect of abiding of humbling it's this whole thing about you know, increasing in love towards one another how we relate to each other how we choose to live in love towards one another not an easy thing very, very difficult people are not easy to put up with people are the ones who bring us greatest joy, you know, if you ever noticed it's almost the people who bring the greatest joy but it's also people who can really make life a struggle so how we treat those people oh my God takes it so seriously because here we are talking about his children and daughters and he for him each person is very precious now you may look at on a certain person as a pain in the neck but for God that person is extremely precious so be very careful in the way you you know behave with different people in the in the decisions that you take towards them against them be very cautious are you doing it in line with the will of God or are you just acting out of you know your own convenience and maybe out of your own ego because if we are not you know increasing in love and causing our love to overflow towards each other like it says over here you know then we will not be walking in holiness because he says over here may he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy you will be blameless and holy if you know you are increasing in your love you are overflowing with love towards each other it's something that happens on a daily basis where you choose to walk in holiness this is what most of our Christian life is about because it's all about people right so how we treat them how we relate to them the words that we speak to them the decisions that we take regarding them you know whether to harm them or whether to bless them whether to tear them down or whether to build them up and God is watching and God takes it very seriously when you're touching even one child of God so this is something that we need to be very careful about this is an important part of our biding in him so are you willing to stand on the truth of God's word accept his word as being 100% true and so you are going to be doing a lot of you know painful things to be loving towards that person it's going to take a lot of sacrifice but you choose to believe that God in his time will bless you for that reward you for that he will help you to do that and so you choose to believe in the truth of his word rather than all the lies which Satan is feeding into your ears and saying this person doesn't deserve it so you don't really after all that the person has done you can treat them the way you want and Satan is feeding all of these lies but do you choose to hold on to the truth of God's word and say no I choose to hold on to what God is saying and so I will treat this person in this way only I will be holy in my attitude towards them and the decisions that I take towards them if when you stand for God in that manner then you will indeed be blameless and holy and God himself will strengthen your heart he will help you you cannot do this on your own in fact none of these things can ever be done independently on our own but even as we abide in him when he sees that we are walking in step with him he will empower us to walk by his power by the power of his Holy Spirit he will do that for us so this is one very important aspect of our abiding that we need to be conscious of moving on to some of the important things that I mentioned in chapter 6 which talks about the beauty of holiness so we will just very quickly try to look at some of those things so these would be things which are there in your notes in chapter 6 let's maybe begin by looking at 1 Chronicles chapter 16 verse 29 1 Chronicles 16 29 please if you could have someone read out give to the Lord the glory due his name bring an offering and come before him or worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness it is not enough to just bring him an offering how are you bringing that offering to him you need to bring it in the beauty of holiness are you clothed in the beauty of holiness over here the word that is being used over there that's the word hadar the word for beauty the Hebrew word for beauty that is being used over here hadar basically is the glory that is possessed by that particular person so when you are talking about the beauty of God's holiness the hadar of God's holiness you are basically talking about the glory that he possesses so here when it's talking about human beings you know walking in the hadar of holiness it's talking about people who are coming covered in that glory they are choosing to live holy lives and so God's glory is resting upon them and so they come in that beauty and make their offerings so if they are coming with their offerings in a sinful condition there is no beauty in that and your offerings would not be acceptable actually you know because you are bringing your offerings with unclean hands with an unclean heart and there is no repentance so that's the whole point the point is are you repentant are you sensitive to him when he corrects are you willing to say yes Lord I am wrong and are you willing to submit and correct yourself as long as that repentant attitude is there oh that's more than enough so here I am not talking about perfection because we are all going to be failing in this or that because we are still learning but if you have a very repentant attitude where you are willing to quickly as soon as the Lord convicts you if you are willing to correct yourself and if you have that humble attitude then you really are clothed in this beauty of holiness you possess this glory of God and you are walking in that you are covered in that so whatever offerings you are bringing before him you are bringing it in the beauty of holiness and you will be acceptable this is another aspect to this whole beauty of holiness this is another term that is used you know another Hebrew term so if someone could read out Sam 90 was 17 90 is 17 90 right 90 yes 90 Sam chapter 90 was 17 May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us establish the work of our hands for us yes establish the work of our hands so here rather than using the word beauty in our English in the NIV translation it says let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us but in Hebrew the actual literal word it is talking about another aspect of beauty hadar was one word for beauty now this is a different word for beauty and it is the word noam ok so this is let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us as in his delight rests upon us his favor rests upon us so when we when we choose to walk in the holiness of God and he shares his glory with us so that we are sharing in the hadar of God in that beauty in that glorious beauty of his holiness even as we are walking in that when we choose to do all our works in that manner then God will God's favor rests upon us so that beauty in that sense his delight rests upon us and we are acceptable and also another aspect of this word noam I know this beauty it's a beauty which not only just rests upon us it is also a beauty that gets reflected as in people who see us they see the beauty of what we are doing and they praise God for it so maybe one simple example of that would be Matthew chapter 5 verse 16 if someone could read out Matthew 5 verse 16 Matthew chapter 5 verse 16 in the same way let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven so it talks about how you let your light so shine before men so in a way I mean drawing a parallel you could say what is this light which is shining that's basically the glory of God right I mean you are walking in holiness you are choosing to do what God wants you to do so that light is shining out through you his glory is shining out through you because you are honoring him you are walking in holiness so that light is shining through you and it expresses itself basically through good works so this good works which you are doing you know it causes God's no arm his favor to just rest upon you he delights in you but it's also something which people see because his delight is resting upon you this beauty is resting upon you people see that you are beautiful and they think and and they don't just restrict themselves to saying you know oh you are a beautiful person they also see from where the beauty has come they recognize that it is the beauty of God which is resting upon you and so they glorify the Father in heaven they say oh my God is using this person to bring so much goodness into our lives this person the hands of the work of their hands is blessing us and so they say Father thank you thank you for this person thank you for using this person in this way it is such a blessing to us and they glorify the Father so what happens in the process the glory goes back to him so it's all interconnected so we can't exactly like you know put hadar and no arm and all into watertight compartments they are all interconnected so even as we choose to walk in holiness his glory is there you know clothing us and his light rests upon us that beauty God's beauty rests upon us and people see that and when people see the beauty of God in us they praise him and they say thank you for sending this person to do these things for us so it's a lifestyle that we choose to live in a way that honors God so maybe just another few verses that we can you know quickly run through even as we have around 10 minutes left Psalm 65 verse 4 if someone could read out Psalm 65 verse 4 Psalm chapter 65 verse 4 blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts we are filled with the good things of your house and of your holy temple now these are people that God has chosen and declared as acceptable so only they are in fact allowed to come before his throne so you may have a whole lot of people you know coming into the church but the ones who are actually coming into his presence are the ones whom he has specifically chosen he has hand picked them why because they have chosen to abide in him so you know when he comes into God's presence in the sense God is open to receive whoever comes to him and so if they have that repentant open receptive attitude in the heart then even as they try to reach out to God, God will reach out to them so some people who come into the church may be believers some may be unbelievers but if that person has an open heart a receptive heart a heart that is willing to know submit so if you have such a heart then even as you are reaching out to God God reaches out to you but the point being made over here is that so you see only such people are allowed to approach him at the spiritual realm at the physical realm of course everyone comes and occupies the seats everyone is standing over there in God's presence but the ones who actually gain personal access to him it's all those people who are standing over there with open hearts receptive hearts they are willing to receive they are willing to hear, they are willing to be corrected their ego there is something inside them that is hungry so they may in fact be an unbeliever who knows nothing about Christianity knows nothing about the bible but they are standing over there and there is this openness this is hunger this is longing to know God even though they may not even realize that's the longing which is crying out deep inside such people even as they are reaching out God will reach out to them because such people they are chosen by God and He chooses them to approach him they are acceptable so when we are in God's presence it is good of course to rejoice to celebrate to sing and to dance and all of that but it is important to recognize that this is a privilege that is being given and it is a solemn privilege so in a lot of churches we have singing and dancing and jumping and shouting and whistling and all of that now are you doing all of this in an attitude of worship to honor him or are you just simply giving expression to your human nature if that is all you are doing just because you are the kind who likes to dance and you are dancing that's fine as long as you are doing it in holiness it is coming out of that attitude of reverence and enjoyment of God you are just enjoying God enjoying His presence and so you jump and you dance and you are connected to Him in what you are doing so whatever you would do do it honorably on the other hand if it is just you functioning out of your fleshly nature you would just be doing it to satisfy your own self because it makes you feel good and there is a chance that you may end up expressing it in a sinful manner so kind of let us be aware of this even as we worship in our churches that He chooses who will approach Him He chooses who can come into His presence so it is a solemn thing so when we are worshiping Him like it says in your notes it should not just be human fleshly revelry rather it should be reverence and so you don't need to really worry about that if you are a person who is walking in God and you are connected to Him and you have this desire to honor Him automatically be careful in the way you are expressing your reverence you may jump and shout and dance real crazy but you are doing it really to honor Him so you would be careful to see that you are not portraying yourself in a way which would disgrace the name of God so that would automatically be the case so you don't have to worry too much about that I guess this is more of a point for those who just do it for the feel goodness the good feel it gives you so they whistle because you know whistling is something that's fun to do they jump and they clap just because it just makes them feel nice in their flesh so for such people maybe they need to watch out a little bit and be careful about how they are doing it because they may get carried away no harm in being expressive and exuberant personality type it's who you are but if you are not very connected to God if you are not really abiding in Him it's a chance that you may end up expressing yourself in the wrong way for all the wrong reasons just kind of watch out better to be cautious about these things because you are coming into the presence of a holy God it's talking about how this is his holy temple so when you want to dwell in his courts be a little careful about these things because he not only looks at the outward expression but he also looks at the inside the heart with what kind of a heart are you doing these external acts of worship so that's just something to watch out for something to be a little careful about we will we will maybe conclude with another two verses so if someone could read out Psalm 110 verses 1 to 3 Psalm 110 verses 1 to 3 Psalm chapter 110 verse 1 to 3 oh my, am I still connected? okay my connection is kind of bad so here it talks about how you know in the millennium in the millennial kingdom so it's talking about how in the millennial kingdom his people God's people they will be arrayed in holy slender they will be like this dew early morning dew which is so fresh and so pure and so clean and so full of you know vitality it says that God's proofs will be like that they will be arrayed in holy splendor so if we choose to abide in God and our connection to him is very strong we will be like this dew very fresh very pure very vital that is how we will be so we will be arrayed in that kind of a holy splendor okay so then of course you know I mean like it says over there in the previous verse in verse 1 it says sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet so it's the Lord Jesus Christ who will make the enemies his footstool but then we are involved in that process we are partnering with him in subduing the enemy and so we will be able to do it because we are like that fresh morning dew we are full of vitality and life and we will be able to subdue the enemy on behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ of course he ultimately does it through us but we partner with him in achieving that so holiness causes us to walk in victory it helps us to walk in victory so maybe we can just close with that thought a few more verses we covered almost everything in your two chapters but then you could just quickly go through it again in your notes because there were some portions which we could not touch upon just a few one or two so let's just close with the word of prayer because we are like out of time let's pray Lord we just thank you so much for all the things that we could learn today Lord we want to abide in you we truly do believe that your word is the truth it is 100% truth and if we can hold on to it and depend on it rather than listening to the lies which satan keeps feeding us in our mind we know then we will be able to walk in victory so help us a lot help us to do that help us a lot to allow ourselves to be sanctified by your word by accepting that it is true and by holding on to it no matter what so we pray that you Lord would empower us to amputate whatever is contaminating us help us a lot to discipline ourselves even though discipline is so painful Lord you guide us you strengthen us to do these things because then we can be like the dew of the early morning and we can be vital and strong and fresh and pure and be able to subdue the enemy under our feet help us a lot to to actually walk into these things in our everyday lives thank you Lord in Jesus name amen amen thank you so much thank you thank you