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Showing posts with the label Character

Boxists and Others Who Use Virtues to Trap You

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Beware of them. They're out there everywhere to trap people and make them do their bidding. Often, they pretend to espouse love, humility and patience to use them against people they want to control. And yup, it's all about control. They love to control and manipulate, and they won't hesitate to use all the religious arsenal available at their disposal. Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash . For lack of a better term, I sometimes refer to them as boxists . Not boxers. Boxers are expert punchers with their fists. Boxists love labeling people and putting them in boxes. You cannot be yourself and have a right to your own opinion. Nope. They categorize you and lump you with others they think are of the same persuasion.  Box-Type Boxists If you say you believe in eternal security, for instance, they automatically lump you with the Calvinists or Baptists or Fundamentalists. If you worship expressively, they put you in their Pentecostal box. If you believe in holiness, they'd put

Unanswered Prayer is Favor

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Image from ColourBox. One day, I read somewhere in the bible. "Will he keep putting them off?" The phrase caught my attention years ago while in meditation. It was a powerful revelation. God sometimes intentionally "keeps putting off" the prayers of his "righteous (or chosen) ones." He deliberately delays or ignores our prayers, keeping them unanswered "day and night," not because of sin in our lives, but because he chooses to. Why does he choose to? I'll reveal it to you later. Here's the complete passage: And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? [Luke 18.7] I then understood God's point in Job. Job's prayers remained unanswered because God favored him, as God's earlier conversation with Satan revealed. Job's friends insisted that it was due to sin, or disfavor, because they didn't understand what was going on, though the

The Radical Thing Jesus Saw in Zacchaeus

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Image from OneClipArt. It's good chow when you're a dinner guest of a rich man who's turned genuinely generous. You get to be served the best meats and wines in town, not to mention the dessert. It's probably why Jesus preferred to stay at Zacchaeus' house---well, among other reasons, that is. After calling Matthew (another tax collector), Jesus was also found in his house eating (again) with tax collectors and sinners. Tax collectors must have been really good dinner hosts or sponsors, choosing only the best cuisines and drinks for their guests. Jesus loved food (like I do) so a lot of his stories are on food. In fact, some people thought he was a glutton [Matthew 11.19]. Thus, he may have anticipated a swell dinner at Zacchaeus' place, so he invited himself to it. I would, too. But Jesus saw in Zacchaeus something more. I've always admired Zacchaeus for what he did just to see Jesus. It's a very rare scene seeing a rich man climb up a tree ju

What Do Jesus' And John's Lifestyles Teach You?

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Jesus and John the baptizer led radically simple lifestyles to get across a powerful message. Unfortunately, though, the church seems never to get the point. We still want to attract the world on its terms. So we give it what it wants just to have the world come inside our churches and stay. Jesus could have come to earth as a materially impressive Messiah with strong connections and influence with the higher-ups in government. He could have built impressive religious buildings with state-of-the-art facilities. He could've displayed costly camels or chariots or started a big church with immense church membership to get a lot of church income from it---and further enlarge his ministry empire and make it more impressive to the world. He could've come as Ceasar's or Pilate's or Herod's son. But he didn't. Neither did John. John was the son of a priest, and priests were a privileged class in those times. They were amply provided quality provisions.

This Lying Believer Got WORD from GOD!

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Image from Mysticurious. We've been long taught that sinners cannot have access to God in any way because sin blocks our path to him. And it's bible truth actually. Sin separates from God. Even if you pray a thousand times, God won't hear you. And he can't use you in ministry either. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. [Isaiah 59] But this prophet got away with all that [1 Kings 13]. He told a lie and still got Word from God and was even used by Him. To make matters worse, he caused the ill-timed death of a righteous man of God. Instead of him getting punished, God punished the young prophet who risked his life to obey God even if it meant possible death in the hands of a corrupted king, Jeroboam. It shatters our theology, our understanding of sin and it's ill effects on us. He was an old prophet from Bethel which was then in rebellion against God because of King Jero

How Well Do You Know God's Kingdom? [5]: SALT AND LIGHT

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Images above from Dreamstime and Flickr. Salt and Light Few things are important in the Kingdom---like being salt and light. On these two depends your effectiveness in the Kingdom. You may look so good and effective in ministry, but if you lose your saltiness and don't shine properly as light, you're nothing in the Kingdom. In fact, being salt and light of the world is more important than any church "ministry" or activity. Being salt and light is what keeps us from ending up like the Pharisees and religious law teachers---salt that had lost its saltiness and light that was kept under the bed or a bowl. They were experts when it came to the Word of God but they never lived it out. They lacked character results. They lacked fruit. If you live out the Word, you live the Beatitude Life. As long as the Beatitudes is seen in you, you are salt and light. You are effective in the Kingdom. Salt Salt is good as long as it keeps its saltiness. "Saltiness"

How Well Do You Know God's Kingdom [3] LIFE and Character

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Image from American Magazine. LIFE and Character Right from the start of Jesus' ministry, he made clear what the Kingdom really is---it's producing fruit. And by "producing fruit," it's like how trees produce them. Trees do not work hard or use effort to bear fruit. They just stand there and wait for God to do everything for it. John 15 says we produce fruit by remaining connected to the Vine---by remaining in Christ. It's really all that easy. Remaining in Christ turns your life upside down and strangely different from the lives of other people, very different from the world, in fact. It's radically, eerily and even "frighteningly" so different that a lot of people get scared and turn away from it, even church people (or especially church people and their leaders). Jesus enumerated the Kingdom virtues on a mountainside one day. Beatitudes Kingdom is life. It's not a religious organization or a particular theology or belief or

Shedding Off The World-Shaped YOU

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Image from iStock. Your full potentials---this is what GOD wants you to get. Don't just get saved by grace; be transformed by grace, too. This is NOT an option. This normally happens during genuine regeneration in Christ. And I mean, you radically transformed and turned into something out of this world. Something this world has never yet seen---like how Jesus was transfigured on a high mountain. And mind you, the Greek word used in the New Testament for transformed and transfigure is the same: metamorphoo . It's also the same with the term metamorphosis . And here we picture out an ugly caterpillar enclosed in a cocoon to undergo radical transformation, turning the ugly caterpillar into a completely different creature. A completely different beautiful creature! Unless You Cease Unless this happens to you, you can never access your full God-given potentials. How wonderful are these potentials? The Holy Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing what you can be---a "foreta

Blessed but Without Inheritance

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Barba CFO Being blessed is good (and we should thank God a lot for it) but it's really no big deal. I mean, it doesn't mean you are better than others as lots of folks would have it. God blesses both the righteous and the wicked. God even abundantly blessed Ishmael even if he wasn't God's will for Abraham. And here's what's even astonishing---even if you are in the present move of God and you know exactly what God's will is and have a good relationship with Him, but if you fail to wait on Him and go ahead of Him, you'll end up with an Ishmael---with everything wrong---though everything may seem perfect. Blessed but scratched out of inheritance So blessed and yet without inheritance. Is that possible? Yes it is. In fact, you see it everywhere in ministries. Churches in a hurry to grow big, doing anything and everything that works and indeed growing big and looking so blessed. They really look so, so blessed. But because they're not using

Why are the Poor in Spirit Blessed?

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jaxfellowship.org Why are the  poor in spirit  blessed? It baffles me each time I ponder on this passage, especially today when you see almost no one in church desiring to be poor in spirit. Is there? They all want to be somebody---they want titles, degrees, positions, recognition, the most number of members, the highest church income, the mega-est church of all. You can be poor in spirit even with all the above---prestige and even riches---but the problem is, I have yet to see someone who is. Well, there's Mother Teresa. Who else? Most of us just want to talk about ourselves and what we do and have [1 John 2.16]: For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. I also wonder why Jesus made poor in spirit number one among his Beatitude teachings, considered by many as his centerpiece teaching. Wouldn't God re

The Main Ingredient Before GOD Uses You Powerfully

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velopeter.dk The least is the greatest in the Kingdom of God. Before God uses anyone, he or she must first be the greatest in the Kingdom. So that person must be the least . Being the least , especially being least in the eyes of men---this is the main ingredient before God uses you powerfully. So He takes you to the desert. Jesus was taken to the desert as soon as he came out in the power of the Holy Spirit from being baptized. After a bathing of tremendous power like that, you need the wilderness experience to keep you humble. Only power made perfect in weakness can defeat Satan in the wilderness, not positions, money, achievements, degrees, titles, or anything valued by the world. Thus, the Holy Spirit immediately led Jesus to the desert so he can remain the least . John the baptizer was son of Zechariah the priest. Being priest, Zechariah led a materially abundant life. Priests and Levites were well fed and provided for as indicated in Deuteronomy 18. They had no inheri

What If We Didn't Judge One Another?

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dooneawa.net JUDGMENT. What if no one judged anyone as many today demand? Even church people demand this. Even some church leaders. People today cry out in the wilderness---"Do not judge us!" Or "Don't be judgmental!" Imagine if we all stopped judging. What would happen to the world? What would happen to church? It will be exactly as the time Moses went up Sinai for 40 days and the Israelites engaged in idolatrous revelry at the foot of the mountain. Without judgment, people are hellbent on idolatry, even church people. God's judgment is His love. He judges because He wants to correct our ways. He wants us to stay in straight paths. And in the bible, God did this by sending his servants to pronounce the judgment on people. His servants spoke for Him. If God is in you in Christ, you also should judge because you love your neighbor as yourself. Prophets were called to pronounce God's judgments. And they were hated for it. Just like today. And

In Him is No Darkness at All

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In Christ is no darkness at all, but that's after he takes you to his darkness.  Before light, he makes you spend time in God's darkness, like what he did with Paul. Paul was blinded by God so that he remained seeing God's darkness for three days. In the same way, the Israelites spent days in the desert facing Sinai so they could see the dark clouds on top of the mountain before they could proceed deeper into the wilderness and cross the Jordan. There's something about God's darkness that makes you see light more, and something about it to dispel the darkness in this world. After meeting God's darkness, you experience no darkness in Him at all. No wonder most men of God go through a dark phase in their lives---not the darkness of wickedness and sin but the darkness of uncertainty and hard trials---to break the earthen vessel they are in and come out shining as bright as Jesus the Light of the world. Jesus himself entered that darkness before being promote

Jesus' Cross: Still Foolishness and a Stumbling Block to Most People

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runluaurun.com It seems we recognize the wooden cross more than what it symbolizes. The wooden church is more acceptable in church (it's placed on church buildings and inside altars) than the sufferings of Christ which we are called to: To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. [1 Peter 2.21] Of course, we're not to have ourselves crucified literally on the cross. Christ already did that to pay for our sins. We don't need to repeat it. But we have to embrace the life of suffering persecution for His Name and for living out his Word daily. The Jesus cross is also about staying meek and simple, "poor in spirit" and abandoning all forms of worldliness while being in the world. It's about living the holy life of Jesus and stopping feeding the flesh or ego. This Jesus cross is still foolishness to many church people and still serves as a stumbling block.  The meaning of th