Posts

Showing posts from 2013

If MY People, Not the People or Government

With the devastation by typhoon Yolanda of central Visayas in the Philippines, and the prophecy from India that another super typhoon may again hit the country in April, popular church leaders urge the stop of corruption in government. People should repent of wickedness, especially those in government, they stress, and then quote or sing, "If my people who are called by my name.." in 2 Chronicles 7.14. Well, they're reading it wrong. First, in the passage above, God urges HIS people , not the people in general nor the government. The term My people are people of the covenant. So, in Chronicles, it applied to the whole nation of Israel, which was God's chosen, especially its government. But we cannot say the same of the Philippines, or of other nations, even the US. All people in the Philippines and people in government [and especially a people soaked in centuries of an idolatrous religion] cannot be called My people . My people are genuine born again Christian

How You Get to be Comfy with Sin without Noticing It

It can happen to anyone. It happened to Kings Saul and David. They were in sin without realizing it at first. Saul thought God was on his side as he pursued David, intending to kill him. David also was madly devising plans how to get rid of Uriah to have Bathsheba for himself. They both became comfy with their lives, confident of their achievements and positions, not seeing how they gradually drifted spiritually from God. Land of Slavery Can Look Like Paradise Sin is like that. Like the devil, it deceives. Paul said sin can seize the opportunity that the law affords and deceives believers [Rom7.11]. Sin can device strategies so you fall without noticing it. It is alive and plans spiritual disasters for the church. It dies when it is unmasked, brought into the light, and melts in the exposure. We need light to see how sin is deceiving us. Church achievements and busyness can blind us into believing we’re doing okay with God even if we are harboring secret sins in our hearts. Th

Book Review: Leaving the Land of Slavery

Image
IS A SINLESS LIFE REALLY POSSIBLE? It is, if you're in Christ, although many people who have supposedly "received" Jesus into their lives still remain in sin. Among promises of Jesus once you surrender your life to him is freedom from sin. "If the Son sets you free you will be free indeed." Here's how he said it: 34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37 [John 8] There are powerful principles in the bible designed to help us live a holy life in Christ. I share about them in this e-book. These are Kingdom principles seldom seriously discussed or taught in church. Learn about them in this e-book and also support me in my ministry when you buy a copy (PDF). Click here to buy!  Being free from the traps of sin takes more than just church attendance, church activities, seminars,

Disciple All Nations: The Quality of Increase God Wants

GOD's Flesh is all for numerical increase. We need to share the Gospel to as many. We need to work with God to increase the number of people getting saved and joining the church. We need more evangelism and we need to go all out particularly in these last crucial days. But we need to strictly go by God's quality control. The Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. The church needs to be filled up with Kingdom assets, not liabilities. In bible history, God always destroyed liabilities. When the Israelites were becoming more of a liability, he destroyed them all in the desert. God does not need liabilities in his kingdom. This is why Jesus emphasized discipling nations just before he ascended. This is the quality of increase God wants in his church—discipled increase. Not just any increase for the sake of church expansionism, just to win the popularity contest and prove which church is better and bigger. Thus, as long as an increase is denominational, it does

Meekness: If You Don't Have It You're Nothing

Number of churches planted, how mega your church is, how many mega churches you have, big church income, big membership--everyone in church looks for these today. Everything's up-size. Everything's gauged and valued numerically and by size. Doesn't anyone look at what's in the heart anymore? Worse, meekness today is looked upon as a weakness. Everyone's out to brag. And great braggers make it to the top! When I was among young people, there was this church denomination that started a contest. The pastor with the highest number of new members and biggest church income would be given a Php 10,000 bonus. I thought it was funny. What was this, a franchise business? Even the born again church cannot recognize greatness except numerically--anything that translates to money value. But Jesus laid it all clear: Unless you change and become like little children, you will never  enter the kingdom of heaven.  Hence, whoever takes the lowly position of this child 

Kingdom Culture: Creating Genuine New Creations in Christ

Make sure you have the Kingdom culture deep within you, not denominational or any other culture. Make certain also that you and what you do in life are well grounded only on the Jesus culture. Be strict about this. Be fanatical even. But everything should be natural in the spirit, nothing forced on yourself. It should all happen effortlessly. The Kingdom culture is there because it's no longer you who live but Christ who lives in you. Culture in the Physical A lot of Christians still operate in their worldly culture. They are yet too controlled by the influences and propensities triggered by their race, nationality, nationalism or "love" for country, and in the Philippines, their regionalism. Because they are Ilocano, Tagalog, Ilonggo, Bocolano, or Visayan, they claim they have such and such tendencies dictated by their regional culture and which they claim runs in their blood. That's all a lie. Anyone in Christ is a new creation; the old is past! Among the ai

Misreading God's Judgment as His Favor

It's easy to misread God's judgment as his favor. I see it happen many times. God gives a guy a stern judgment to give him a chance to remedy or correct his wrongs, but he thinks it's God's favor on him and brags about it in church, becoming more arrogant and rotten. And blind church people applaud him--often because he has money or has political church clout. Take this guy, for instance. He has complicated heart problems that necessitated operation that cost his family more than a million pesos. Plus, God allowed him to have cancer, too. He survived them all and brags that God really favors him and approves of his ways and life. But the guy is actually rotten in character and has a penchant for putting people to shame. And he sometimes even mocks the Word of God and ridicules those who sincerely and avidly believe God's Word by applying it in their lives and ministries. To me, this is how I read God's action on his life. God is giving him a chance to corr

Why Secular Love Songs Make Us Love More

Again, many Christians may beg to disagree here, but if you're honest enough (and religiosity aside) you'd see how most secular love songs sound better and more inspiring than Christian love songs to God do. For instance, you'd see how lots of Christians are familiar with secular songs but few in the world are familiar with Christian songs. Or worse, many Christian composers imitate the tunes of secular songs to ride on their popularity. Sometimes, when I listen to the radio, familiar tunes are playing which I know to be secular. But then I discover that they are actually Christian songs patterned after popular secular songs. I get disappointed because the Christian world seems fond of pursuing after trends in the secular world. Don't they have the imagination to create originals? Why imitate? Well, the songs of some Christian artists, like Don Moen, are exceptional. You can readily sense how they have original tunes as well as lyrics. None of them were deriv

Jesus Should Terrify You Now and Then

When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,”  they said, and cried out in fear. [Matt.14] You should find Jesus terrifying at times. This means you are moving with him from glory to glory. This means Jesus is taking you to a higher level of walking with him. This means Jesus is taking you to a new and higher dimension, like what he did with Enoch who walked with him for 300 years.  It would be alarming if your days were monotonous all you life, without Jesus showing you new, awesome supernatural things and revealing to you his various multi-faceted glories. It would suck if all you saw was the world, and worse, the worldly church that men invented and called "born again." Jesus could have crossed the lake using another boat, or he could have told the disciples to wait for him at the foot of the mountain or somewhere else while he talked with the Father. No, he had to make them go ahead in a boat so that winds would hinder

Shallow and Boring

If it's not shallow, then it's boring. Sometimes it's both. A lot of churches are attractive because they are full of action and surprises. They have this and that ministry, they are seen showing social concern in the marketplace, they travel a lot for missions, they easily plant new churches, the works. Yet, they're shallow. You never hear them talk of God's awesome presence or visitations. In fact, they prefer using expired medicine for their medical missions instead of rely on God's supernatural healing. Well, not all of them. When they gather casually, they just talk about their ministries and the things they do and are good at, and the things they receive recognition for. Yes, they often talk about "ministry" but it's really just about themselves. You never hear them talk about how God moved in their lives supernaturally, or marvel at God in Scriptures, especially his supernatural works. In fact, they often mock at anything supernatur

Who Said We Need to Worship Each Time?

Before I start anything here, I want to assure readers that I believe we need to worship God always, endlessly, because He deserves nothing less. After making myself clear now, I start to detonate a bomb--who said we need to worship each time? By "worship" I mean the way most churches take it to mean today--singing and music. Before they have the Word preached to them, they need to "worship" first. So they sing songs after their prelude and Scripture reading and etc. They say worship in this manner is vital, without which no Word would be anointed for preaching. If you want God to come down and give understanding for his Word, we have to worship good. That's what they say. And it's been that way for decades, if not centuries. Why? Why do we need to worship? In Jesus' Days Then I go back to the bible and see Jesus. He preached the Word and wonderful things happened. God came down to perform incredible feats--and that without worshiping 

Naaman Spirit: Addicted to Greatness

Image
Naaman was addicted to greatness, same as many church people are. Just look at pastors--they want to handle the biggest church building, have the biggest ministry, have the biggest membership, have the biggest income, accomplish great things for God, and get the most number of titles. They want to have the biggest concert, be the most popular, and have the most number of bible studies. Big is always in. The Greatest Shall be the Least Naaman was like that. He was a great Aramean general who was pampered by great accompishment and special attention. I can imagine how he must have loved being greeted in public as the Pharisees were in Jesus' time. But Naaman was up for God's promotion so he needed to be humbled. The greatest shall be the least of all. So God allowed him to contract leprosy. In the eyes of the blind world that was bad news--but to God it was a precursor of true Kingdom greatness. An Israelite servant girl of Naaman's wife mentioned God's