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Showing posts with the label Glorious Church

New Normal in the Spirit

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This is NOT a time for usual things. Much less for church traditions. If in CIY Fellowship we've been doing things so unusual, it's time to leave these "elementary teachings" and go on to the next level of maturity. As there's a new normal in the world, so there is in the heavenlies. Actually, the new normal in the spirit realms has started long before the one in the world came to be. [Picture by TedwardQuinn, Unsplash]. Just as the Jesus' spiritual church started long before man's church in this world started. Least is the Greatest In these last days, God is introducing some brand new things to the Philadelphia church [Revelation 3]. This church is weak (it has "little strength") and probably belittled and despised. The least church by all earthly measures and standards. But in God's eyes it is a 5-star general in his army, being in possession of an "open door" from the Lord that no one can shut. To this church Jesus ha

The Lord's Resurrection Arm

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In a way, Resurrection's good news is also about the grace that enables us to stop drinking from the cup of God's wrath, and having the enemy drink from it instead. By Jesus' rising from death through God's supernatural power, true believers become children of God spared from his wrath and given supernatural power to live his life on earth and do his ministry. [Picture above by Damir Spanic, Unsplash]. “See, I have taken out of your hand the cup that made you stagger; from that cup, the goblet of my wrath, you will never drink again. 23 I will put it into the hands of your tormentors, who said to you, ‘Fall prostrate that we may walk on you.’ And you made your back like the ground, like a street to be walked on.” [Isaiah 51.22-23] But it doesn't end there. To a lot of church people, though, it does--escaping the wrath is the end--and all they have to do now is be active in  their church and in their ministries happily ever after. This is what they call church

Church with a Babylon System

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The Babylon church system will intensify these last days as the devil's last ditch effort to deceive believers. Intensified and yet mostly undetected. Everything seems normal. Business as usual. Yet, the "great prostitute" (Mystery Babylon) goes on committing adultery with the "kings of the earth" as she also intoxicates the "inhabitants of the earth with the wine of her adulteries," says Revelation. Picture above from https://unsplash.com/photos/6EnTPvPPL6I. "Kings of the earth" doesn't just mean political rulers or presidents of countries but every influential leader--in politics, businesses, industries and churches. Especially those who act like "kings" and value being great in this world (the Nebuchadnezzar spirit)--doing everything to be great--believing that the greatest has the right to rule the least. This illusion of "being great" makes them so susceptible to the "wine of her adulteries." She m

Pastors' Number One Fear 2

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Pexels Part 1 Here Is Being Small Sin? They've made it a doctrine that small is sin. They won't admit it but it's there. Most pastors lose sleep over it. They lose their health, happiness and temper wondering how not to be small. It's become these pastors' number one fear---being a small church. They think small is "dead" especially if you remain small. Some smart Aleck inculcated into their minds that God gets so angry when they're small. Actually, it's nowhere in Scriptures. Yes, God wants us to evangelize and make disciples of as many people as we can, but he never commanded anywhere that, "thou shalt be a big local church!" Numbers and growth remain God's decision alone. He decides the size of your church. Your only responsibility is to be faithful with what you're given, period. So, you shouldn't fear having a small church or even losing members. No reason for pastors' number one fear. So neither the one w

Pastors' Number One Fear

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Image from  Tenth Amendment Center. Most pastors, no matter how fearless or unperturbed they seem in ministry, have this number one fear---fear of losing members. A dwindling membership. In fact, a lot of them sacrifice their lives and families and plunge headlong to ministry, not because they love Jesus and lost souls, but because they fear losing membership. It's most pastor's number one fear. They fear having a small church. Well, not all of them, but most of them. Be free from the slavery of that fear. Click here. Something close to that is another pastors' greatest fear---no church at all. Because to them, having just 2 or three followers is not church. They laugh if you call that a church, especially if you quote Matthew 18:20---they'd say you're out of context. I've seen pastors, thinking they're smart theologians, laugh at this "uncontextualized" interpretation. You don't need human theology to understand this---you j

Jesus' Great Commission

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Youtube First Part It's a glorious plan, bringing down to earth the Kingdom of heaven, so that in these last days heaven shouts saying, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever." [Revelation 11.15]. Jesus' great commission stated in Matthew 6 ( Thy Kingdom come ) is the Alpha and Omega of God's present move in these last days. And this great commission is to be implemented by Jesus' discipleship. Thus, Jesus' great commission is really in two parts--- Thy Kingdom come and make disciples . They cannot be separated, as the greatest commandment (love God with your all and love your neighbor as yourself) cannot be separated. We're to be a Kingdom within a kingdom. God's strategy is like yeast a woman mixed with three measures (60 pounds, says one translation) of dough until the whole thing is "worked through" or "permeated with" yeast. You

Body and DNA Concept of the Kingdom

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Image from Dreamstime. That they may be one as you and I are one. This was Jesus' ardent prayer to the Father, asking all believers to be brought into "complete unity," the same unity the Father and Son have. Only through this will the world really see that God sent Jesus and that he loves us in the exact way the Father loves him. I've been urging believers about this since 10 or 15 years ago or so---perfect unity of all believers. In Acts, all believers were in  a near-perfect degree of unity. There was one single church spread out in various localities in the world. Just one church. Though partially united (because Paul said small schisms and divisions were starting in Corinth), they turned the world upside down. In Thessalonica, the complaint against the church was that, "These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here." See that impact? What more if the unity was really complete? But church never pursued this unity. The

How Jesus Started Church 2

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Image from iStock. Here's Part 1 So Jesus went around preaching the Gospel to people and leaving them to make a decision on their own. He never encouraged or made it easy for people to believe his Gospel and follow him. He never visited people and checked if they were ready to believe in him. There were even times when he avoided crowds who were after him. Simon and his companions went to look for him, 37 and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” 38 Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” 39 So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons. [Mark 1] I can't imagine pastors doing this today. Ignore a crowd that's after you? Pastors would give anything to keep that crowd. They'd sacrifice themselves just to have lots of people in their churches. But not Jesus. He seems to be saying, "You want to join me? Pursue

How Jesus Started Church 1

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Image from Leisure OneHowTo. Here's the first part.  You can never kick out Jesus from his church---unlike most pastors today. They're often at the mercy of their members, especially the influential ones, and one mistake gets them kicked out so easily. So they try to please these members. I've seen it happen lots of times. How did it come to this? Because they started out pleasing people. They invite them to church and try to be nice to them and plead with them to attend church regularly and be regular members. They beg them to come back next Sunday and so on. This surely builds churches (by pampering people) and can make them grow fast, but Jesus never did any of them. He always had this challenge---take it or leave it. "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." [Matthew 16.24] I don't see this principle working in church anymore. I mean, for instance, here's this guy who tries your church and

Pleasing People to Start a Church

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Image from HuffPost. I've seen it happen countless times since I was among young people in church. Pastors doing everything they could to get people in so they can start a church. They'd been doing it then, young pastors are still doing it now. And what do they have? A disaster that often starts out right but turns horrible (and more horrible) as time passes. No "ever-increasing glory"  which Paul talked about to the Corinthians. Jesus wants a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. He won't settle for less. I can't imagine Christ settling for a semi-glorious church with stains and folds and creases. They always say church is a collection of imperfect, flawed people God has accepted by grace and mercy. And that's what church has been---flawed and imperfect and getting worse as time goes by because some preachers pointed church to that direction. They taught us there's no perfect church so just settle for messed up

The Problem with Pastoral Movements and Alliances

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Crux Now It's good to meet together for fellowship. It's what Hebrews 10.25 tells us. But we should meet together for something that really fulfills God's will, not just meet together per se. A lot of pastoral get-togethers are meetings that really lead to nowhere. I know that lots of ministers will get offended by this article. But that's how the prophets of old also declared truth---offending people with truth and even getting killed doing so. I know pastors have the best interests at heart for forming associations and alliances and meetings. But what do they really achieve? They say they do it so there would be unity in the body. I have observed in a lot of pastoral meetings, remaining in the background so I can see the picture from the outside, and I always note that despite their "club" meetings they really remain disunited. For instance, there was this bible study among pastors of different denominations. They discussed on a passage that start