Smallest Seed

Image from  rundanceclimb. The mind of Christ---it has no problem with God being man or man being God (Christ), the perfect in imperfect (Christ in you), and the imperfect in perfect (you in Christ). Night is as day to him and darkness is as light. The Messiah is the son of David and yet David called him Lord. Jesus was of the tribe of Judah (not Levi) and yet he is the high priest of our faith. Or God is love yet he killed a lot of people in the Old Testament (almost killing everyone on earth in the Flood), even killed all the generation that left Egypt but who refused to enter Canaan. He is compassionate but didn't allow Moses to enter the Promise Land just because he hit the rock in the desert two times instead of one. The Mind has no problem with these seeming contradictions. But man's mind does. Christ was (and is) 100 percent God and 100 percent man. But even today a lot of born-again believers still can't get used to God's apparent "contradicti

Image from 123RF. Let's not see it with the eyes of the Pharisees and law teachers. It reeks of toleration. They thought Christ mingled with sinners to assure them of God's love even if they continued enjoying sin. And that's how a lot of people see it today. But then, on the other hand, there are church people who shun the company of sinners altogether and would have nothing to do with them. So we have two extremes---those who teach that God tolerates sin and those who are repulsed by sinners. Oh, there's a third extreme---those who don't give a damn. Jesus didn't just fellowship with sinners. He sought to "call" them [Mark 2.17]. We already know this, but often we still miss the point. We see it as the Pharisees and religious leaders did---that Jesus simply enjoyed sinners and he was a bad example because we aren't supposed to be seen with them. I've seen churches put in active ministry or position people wallowing in sin beca

Image from Daily Mirror. Thank God he is full of grace and mercy. With the same, we should be gracious and merciful to others as well. But here's the problem---most believers misuse them. They think it's a dole out, a grace and mercy spree. And they fondly call it "giving a second chance." They lack wisdom on how God uses these divine helps. I often see pastors giving another leadership chance to their leaders who fell into willful sin. Like that church leader who left his wife and did adultery with another woman. He was suspended from ministry for a while but the pastor later simply put him back to leadership roles even without repentance. The pastor reasoned, repentance was between the sinner and God. So, there he was, this erring leader, doing ministry again even if he continued with an adulterous relationship. And the pastor thought what he did was in line with God's grace and mercy. Second Chance? Give guys like that "second chance"? God

www.gabriellejaviercerulli.com People like hearing about God's love and grace and mercy. You see them flocking en masse in churches that teach nothing but these three and related matters. And indeed, God is rich in love, in grace and in mercy. In fact, God is love. But all these will have true meaning only in the context of Jesus' most hated teaching--- giving up everything . If not, they will remain mere motivational topics to keep people comfortable and challenge them to do more in church---not offer their bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. Offer Our Bodies This is the whole point of worship and service---to offer our bodies as living sacrifices. What do we mean by  living sacrifices ? It does not mean tiring ourselves out in ministry doing this and that, going here and there, being seen on stage and being super active in church. The passage says, "offering our bodies as living sacrifices,  holy and acceptable  to God, which is our spi

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

It's easy to seclude yourself in church ministries and not get involved in the world and "live holy." That was the idea of monasteries where monks lived in mountain seclusions far away from civilization. And they indeed assumed an appearance of holiness. But that's not the true gauge of holiness. I've seen believers and pastors who looked okay while engrossed in church ministries (and confined there) but went wild with sin when exposed to the real world. Some drowned in greed, others wallowed in lust, fornication, adultery, and other forms of sexual immorality. Why? Their spiritual immune system was down while hidden far away in a germ-free environ, as it were. The moment they were in touch with the real world their immune system couldn't handle it. Soaking and hiding in church attendance or ministries cannot empower you to overcome the world. They just incubate sin, nourishing and growing it in a quiet environment waiting for the right time to explod

Artificial testimonies--it's amazing how people can twist things and then believe in them. I've heard lots of phony testimonies like that, nice sounding, very spiritual, but in the end you'd see how things had actually been twisted around to sound good, and then believed by the testifier as real. How did I know that they were phony? Wasn't I just being too judgmental about them?  It's easy--just be sharp spiritually and you'd see that they are artificial testimonies. Jesus gave us the hint--you will know them by their fruit. They say a lot of nice things happening to them spiritually, how they're growing in their spiritual lives, how they heard God tell them this and that, and how they spend much time with the Lord. But later you see how they really live and behave and react and think, and you'd know that everything they said were just artificial testimonies. It isn't just a one-time slip into error or misbehavior. You'd see that it

It's really all so simple, but man's theologies and doctrines complicate it to powerlessness and uselessness. Salvation is really this: No fruit equals hell.  Here's how my Jesus put it: "Unless you (really) change--the change that's very radical that you almost turn into a child--you'll go to hell (or never enter God's Kingdom)." Another time, he put it this way: "You will know the genuine from the fake by their fruit." No fruit equals hell. Many churches only emphasize the "accepting Jesus" part and make it sound like bearing fruit is secondary or worse, optional. They stress that it's all by grace, as if bearing fruit and radical change are not by grace alone. You can never really change and bear fruit unless by God's enabling grace. They also maintain that we are only human and God understands our propensity to sin. They've been making "sound doctrines" out of these garbage so that more soul

It's easy to seclude yourself in church ministries and not get involved in the world and "live holy." That was the idea of monasteries where monks lived in mountain seclusion far away from civilization. And they indeed assumed an appearance of holiness. But that's not the true gauge of holiness. I've seen believers and pastors who looked okay while engrossed in church ministries but went wild with sin when exposed to the real world. Some drowned in greed, others wallowed in lust, fornication, adultery, and other forms of sexual immorality. They didn't have the heart to manage things in the world even while soaked in church ministries. Church attendance or ministries cannot empower you to overcome the world. They just incubate sin, nourishing and growing it in a quiet environment waiting for the right time to explode like a time bomb. In fact, the church as it is today (the church put up by men for men) is in no position to handle money the way the A

I'm astonished at how most "believers" don't get it--that if there's no genuine righteousness, there's no genuine God-power. No matter how well you perform on church stage, how well you lead in worship, how well you lead the church, and how big your church building, membership, or church income is, if you don't have genuine righteousness--the kind that Jesus has and gives--you have no genuine God-power, you got nothing but trash. Paul said God's Kingdom is not a matter of talk. It's all about power, real power. Not the political leverage you see a lot of church people use to influence other people. It's not how you see church pastors and leaders allying with political figures to gain political influence. It's genuine Kingdom GOD-power. And you can't have any of it if you have no genuine righteousness.  Despite this obvious fact in the bible, you still see a lot of fake pastors, preachers, and church leaders living in sin and

The king's food was choice food. It was the best in the land--the best meats and excellent wine. Imagine the greatest king in the world then--Nebuchadnezzar--offering you his best Kingdom Dining Hall menus. But Daniel and his friends would have none of it. He kept himself undefiled by the king's food. What was wrong with the king's food? The key is in the word undefiled . The Word says, "But Daniel strongly determined not to be defiled by royal food and wine," {Dan.1.8]. "Defile" in the bible denotes spiritual contamination, so I imagine that the royal food was first offered to Babylonian gods before being served on the royal table. Daniel didn't want that, no matter how delicious or healthy it may had been.  Food the World Offers This story is so timely and relevant. The world, in these last days, is offering us the best food, in fact, royal food, the best the world and the devil can offer. And so many churches partake of it, enjoying th

In him is no sin. Wow! I love to hear the sound of that. I love to meditate it till it becomes me, till I and my fleshly desires melt away and that Word starts living my life. I want to do it daily, each moment, by God's enabling grace. The doctrine of holiness has been taught and preached for centuries, but its real power has never been fully realized. All we have seen through church holiness history is a faint idea of what it can do for us. Church people themselves have always downplayed the real power of genuine holiness. Some years ago, we saw some holiness preachers, teachers, and theologians tried a measure of holy living in Christ. But they never went beyond. They never did it as radical as my Jesus did it. They still reserved a little something for the flesh, adding to their doctrines some room for sin, in case the believer got carried away again by sin unnoticed. They placed somewhere in their teachings some justifications for sin, saying God understands that we are

The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is often associated with the spiritual gifts. Or, with a miracle wrongly attributed to the devil, as in the case of Matthew 12. But this sin covers more than spiritual gifts or miracles. It's really about life and character. Being God's flesh. In 1 Samuel, we find Eli and his two sons charged with a sin that could never be forgiven. There's only one sin in the bible that can never be forgiven--the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. And it's a sin only believers can commit. Non-believers can only speak against the Son of Man--and this is forgivable. But only believers can commit blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. In Matthew 12, the bible teachers and Pharisees, not pagans, blasphemed the Spirit of God.  In Samuel, Eli and his sons messed up their lives and testimonies as they "served" God. People saw how they belittled worship and did sexual immorality right at the sacred place. This is a great sin to God. It's pure blasp