Posts

Showing posts from August, 2018

Prosperity in the Gospel

Image
Image from 8 Tracks. I was watching this popular Filipino evangelist on TV preaching about prosperity. I respect him and learn a lot when I watch him, but there are certain things I don't agree with him---like his view on God's prosperity. He suggested there may be something wrong with you if you've been a born-again Christian a long time and still poor. Yup, God's will is prosperity. I agree to the max. He even quoted 3 John 2 and Deuteronomy 18.8 and I believe them with all my heart. Yet, we have to get a hint from Jesus and see how he came to earth. He came as a poor fellow and left still a poor fellow, if not poorer. The same with John the baptizer. And look at how James (1) put it: Believers who are poor have something to boast about, for God has honored them. 10 And those who are rich should boast that God has humbled them. They will fade away like a little flower in the field. In the Old Testament, prosperity was material. But these are just shad

Power in the Word with God in the Beginning

Image
Image from WallpapersCraft. "He was with God in the beginning." Moses saw creation in the beginning, but God took John further back in time. John saw things before  the creation. And he saw that "in the beginning was the Word." It's powerful when I sit back and try to imagine all this. Moses said, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." But John saw that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God. Creation came only afterward. They talked of the same thing but saw differently. So, I imagine  "the beginning" covered a lengthy stretch of time, especially when John saw things prior to creation---specifically, when "the Word was with God."  He saw the companionship, relationship and fellowship of the Word and God. He tried to stress this by repeating, "He was with God in the beginning." I see an effort of emphasis here, an accentuation of God and the Word together for a period. A pow

Only God and the Word in the Beginning

Image
Image from cnet.com "...and the Word was with God." It's the foremost reason why we cannot afford to ignore the Word. There was nothing and no one in the beginning but God and the Word. Before anything else came to being---when there was nothing but deep black emptiness (in fact, "emptiness" and "black" didn't even exist)---there was God and the Word. The Word was already there with God. The Word was God . So, God was with God in the beginning. Sometimes, I like to read it "In the beginning was God and God was with the Word, and God was the Word." It makes you see more how the Word takes prominence in it all. You cannot just go content in the morning with your 15-minute "devotion" if you understand this. You'd see clearly why the Word must be meditated day and night. There's so much to know about Him that even a lifetime wouldn't suffice to cover even a third of it---even if we lived 100 lifetimes--