We may think that others have great influence on or over us but a closer examination reveal that we hold the key to ourselves. Our Lord Jesus Christ tell us about that. Our Lord Jesus says deny ourselves (yourself), take up our cross and follow Him. We can not follow ourselves and follow Jesus at the same time.
Others can have great influence over us only if we allow them. Jesus can only have influence over us if we surrender to Him.
Our Lord Jesus gave us example, He is fully surrendered and obedient to the will of the Father.
Surrendering to Jesus takes faith. And staying with Jesus takes commitment but here is good news, God gave us the Holy Spirit to help us.
God also gave us the Holy Bible, priests, pastors, teachers, fellow believers to help us grow. But they will only work for us if we let them.
Will it be friends and relatives ? yourself ? money ? big house or houses ?health ? college degrees ? trophies , medals, awards ? gadgets ? retirement ? own island ? high positions ? travel all over the world ? beautiful or strong body ? popularity and admiration of others ? no problems, no stress ? nice cars ? own city, private streets ? happiness ?life ? fountain of youth ?constant parties ? you name it...
Let say you can have what you want or desire , will you be able to keep it and enjoy them forever ?
Let us look at another offer. This one is from Jesus Christ. He said if anyone will come after Him, let him deny himself , take up his cross and follow Him.
Denying oneself means those items mentioned above, one will have to let go.Taking up cross means we have to be prepared to suffer or to sacrifice. And then follow Jesus.
Which one will we take, our desires or the offer of Jesus ?
Let us look at them one more time, the first ones are temporary, while Jesus' offer is everlasting life. Perhaps you will say, how do we know Jesus offer is everlasting life ? Let me say, on our own desires we work hard for those or we die for those but with Jesus , He died for us. Question , why did Jesus died for us ? Because He loves us. Did our desires love us or we love them ?
I'll take Jesus , how about you ? By the way , Jesus is not a killjoy, He just want to be first in our life, then He will give us what we need. Why does Jesus wants to be first ? Because He is God, our Creator together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
When we are weak , He make us strong. When we are in pain, he comfort us.When we feel we are all alone, He assures us He is with us.
But coming to Jesus takes faith because we do not see Him with our eyes.And Jesus said in coming to Him, we have to deny ourselves (surrender our plans for ourselves ), take up our cross, ( I had to pause for this one and look for the meaning of our cross, one reference says it stands for suffering) so substituting suffering for the cross we are to take up suffering and then to follow Him.
Why deny ourselves ? the reason that comes to mind is we want to please ourselves while Jesus wants to please God. Our ways lead to death while Jesus ways lead to eternal life. The world tries to pull us away from Jesus.
Why carry our cross or suffering ? With this let me pause, suffering ? we in the modern world uses pain killers, anesthesia to deaden the pain. Perhaps Jesus is saying be prepared to suffer or to sacrifice.
Then follow Jesus , why ? To learn from Him, to know His ways, to know God and His righteousness, to know and experience eternal life.
Wow this appears to be hard, but Jesus said His yoke is easy and His burden light. This could only be true through the help and empowerment of the Holy Spirit,
God is our first love, And the Bible reveals that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, Jesus said if anyone has seen Him then that person has seen God the Father. So loving Jesus is the same as loving God the Father. It is also written that the will of God is for us to believe in His Son(Jesus) who He has sent.
For the church, Jesus is everything. Our Savior, our Redeemer, our Shepherd, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, our King, our Lord, our Baptizer in the Holy Spirit, our Refuge, and many more.
Our life , our worship, our everything begins and centers in Jesus. I believe when we have done this, then our needs will be given to us.
Jesus is the name we know but that came from Joshua, also from Yeshua.
Learn more about Jesus from the Bible and from the church we belong to.
This blog is dedicated to those who hosted, participated, affected, troubled, caught in between,approved,responded and lastly for those who are concerned. If you have not heard of this conference, you may later hear about it, but for now, I suggest abstain from it.
I believe 2 Chronicles 7:14 applies to everyone. The verse calls for the people of God, to humble themselves(ourselves), and pray and seek God's face, and turn from their (our) wicked ways.
We learned from the New Testament that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God as Paul revealed in the book of Colossians.So when we seek God's face, we can do this by seeking Jesus' face. As far as our wicked ways, God through the Holy Spirit will reveal them to us, if we ask Him through humility and prayer.
May this conference turn out for good for everyone involved.
Proverbs 3:5,6 says Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.
We are to trust in the Lord, first and foremost. John the Baptist says He (Jesus) must increase and I (John) must decrease.
Man no matter how good they look are fallible. God uses godly men to teach and preach and heal but the glory belongs to the Lord.
Let us humble ourselves and give God the glory.
If we have exalted anyone or anything above God we should repent, and ask God to forgive us.
Do you remember when satan tempted Jesus to turn stone into bread ? And Jesus answered It is written man does not live on bread alone but by every word that proceeded from the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4)
I hope you remember. The word of God was liken to bread and if it is so it can be eaten. Next , how do we eat the word of God ? To eat the word of God is to chew it and take it in. Let us see how it is done.
Let us apply it on Jeremiah 17:7,8 Jeremiah is one of the prophets of God. God reveal His words to the prophets and the prophets reveal them to the people or to us.
Let's start: Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord. Did you notice trust was used twice, one is a verb and the other noun ? Now let us see what happen to that man, who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord.
For he will be like a tree planted by the water,
that extends its roots by a stream, and will not fear when the heat comes;
but its leaves will be green and will not be anxious in a year of drought
nor cease to yield fruit.
Comment: I see blessing, the reward of trusting the Lord, true prosperity, true courage, true faith, and fruit or result. Just like bread we have to keep eating this or we call this "spiritual feeding". After I typed the words I changed the color to red for memory. But you may copy them in notebook or index card or any thing you want. If you have not done this before and you like it, why not do it ?. Get a Bible or a Christian believer to help you.
Do I sound like those charismatics,who preach prosperity and faith ? Maybe so but that is what the Bible teach, the key ? keep looking at Jesus,keep trusting the Lord and be one of those whose trust is the Lord.
I believe all of us have experienced being employed so what does it mean to have God as our main employer ? God is gentle, He will not force us but I believe this is how He works. Some He calls for full time service and others bi-vocational and others to regular secular job.
With God as our main Employer means whatever we do, we do it for the Lord. Colossians 3:23 says And whatever you(we) do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men. the next verses say knowing that from the Lord you(we) will receive the reward of the inheritance for you(we) serve the Lord Christ. But he who does wrong will be repaid for what he has done and there is no partiality.
Let us meditate on this, and obey.May God bless us.
Understanding the misunderstanding between the Fundamentalists and the Charismatics
Going straight to the point Fundamentalists believes in the cessation of spiritual gifts and revelations while the Charismatics believes in the continuation of spiritual gifts and revelations.
Simply put Fundamentalists believes the Bible is complete while Charismatics believes the Bible continues to be written.
Possible results: Fundamentalists appears to limit God from further revelations while Charismatics appears to open the door for all kinds of possibilities, good and bad.
Solution: Keep praying, humble ourselves, love one another and win the world for Jesus Christ. In the power of the Holy Spirit.
God meant His children or people to love one another, but in life we Christians at times disagree .How do we deal with this ? One example is I have a Bible teacher that another Christian is calling a mystic, of which I disagree. I tried what I can to prove that his evaluation is wrong but he stood his ground and I stood mine.
I sensed that we will be going nowhere, so what is the best thing to do ? To go on with the debate will require more energy and time and will produce stress,
I remember God is still on the throne He is the best to decide. So what I am to do ? the answer " let go and let God".
