Smallest Seed

www.godsrainbow.net Here's Part 1 So, while waiting for the Father to start things for his ministry, Isaiah 53.2 says Jesus just "grew up before him"  (the Father)". He  "grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man" [Luke 2.52]. He never desperately went around the neighborhood looking for someone to invite to his ministry. He never did any visitation work. He just grew up . I used to do things the traditional denominational way. I'd go around the neighborhood, introduce myself as a pastor and invite folks to my bible studies, prayer meetings and then later to church. Sometimes I forced them, pestered them with my visits, or made them feel guilty if they didn't come. But then one day, in my quiet time, God showed me something in his Word. I saw how Jesus never did any of the things I was doing. Neither did his apostles in Acts. That served like a bright bulb that suddenly lighted amid black darkness. What did Jesus and

Would you join this church? www.123rf.com Would you have joined Jesus' ministry if you'd been there? Especially if you saw how he had no church building, no riches, no property, no formal education, no formal clothes, no titles or degrees, and no home---not even a pillow to lay his head on? A poor pastor? On top of that, the popular church leaders with the big ministries all denounced him. One time he declared: Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. [John 7.38] Today, we realize the power of this passage because we already know it comes from the Son of God. But back then, it came from a poor carpenter who had no finances or bank account or property to back up his claims.  You looked at him and you saw someone looking just as poor and helpless as you were, probably even poorer---and later you'd see him abandoned by his own disciples and haplessly nailed on the cross. Today, church people clap

www.clipartpanda.com Really, I'm tired of churchy talks and especially about churchy ministries. I've been looking for people who talk about church and ministry as Jesus did. I've been looking around. Honestly--and unfortunately--I haven't seen any. I admit, I've been frustrated about this. I've been wishing to connect and have fellowship with them but I can't find any. There are lots of good pastors and church leaders out there, but I haven't met one who talks of ministry as Jesus did. Church people always talk about their church denomination--how many churches and members they have, what they did, what they accomplished, how many more they aim to have. It's always "our" this and that (admitting it's their empire) and "how many." David counted his troops one day and the Lord's wrath fell on him. Nebuchadnezzar talked about his empire to himself one day, marveling about it, and God sent him to the wilds to live

Left out in the cold. If anyone hears his voice and opens the door... www.elkharttruth.com It always happens when I talk  to church people, leaders or pastors--they're always apt to talk about church--their church or my church. "How's your church? How are your members? How many members do you have?" Things like that. And then they go on talking about their churches, ministries, members, activities, etc. Anything except Jesus Christ. Or, they talk about their ministry strategies, new churches planted, formulas for church growth, their ministry goals, the number of people that came in that Sunday,  "what God tells them" about ministry, how to grow more churches, and the like. Recently, I attended a church denominational conference and all they talked about was themselves and their churches. During the worship, the speaker tried his best to appear excited talking about how to grow local churches. They're all in this mad scramble to win the rat

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

What If Jesus Didn't Save You from Hell? Do you really love him or are you just using my Jesus? A lot of Christians "accepted" Christ because they heard about hell and dreaded ending up there for all eternity. Well, that is scary, and scared people will grab at anything that will get them out of danger. Once you see something that will save you, you'd use it, right? Many Christian saw Jesus in that light and used him. They "accepted" him. But they never surrendered. Many others saw him as a solution to their problems. Well, my Jesus is the Way, not just a way out of troubles. And they get frustrated because even after 'accepting' Jesus, troubles still happen. I wonder--what if Jesus didn't save you from hell? Would you still "accept" him? Would you still love him and worship him as you're doing in church now? Would you still talk to him? Countless times I've seen church people, even leaders and pastors, who did

Paul talked about another Jesus to the Corinthians. Specifically, he said if he or any preacher should teach about another Jesus or another Gospel, a curse be on him or her. And many think today that Paul merely made a slight digression when he talked about it, not realizing that it was a prophecy. He was hinting on a real another Jesus coming to the church scene which the apostle John said was already active (spirit of anti-Christ) in their time and yet to be revealed in the last days--in our time, that is. And today, they're worshiping that other Jesus in church. Roman Catholics worship a Jesus statue and one that seems to be inside their small rounded Eucharist cracker (and which born again Christians also use), others worship a distorted Jesus (mere human Jesus or a Jesus confined to a building or specific day of the week), while born again  churches worship a worse kind of other Jesus . They're all the another Jesus . The one born again churches worship is wor

There can be no forgiveness without repentance. That's Kingdom principle taught by God himself in the bible. Yet, Jesus prayed on the cross: "Forgive them for they know not what they do." Well, did God do it? Did he forgive them? Did they repent? Obviously God didn't. Countless times in the bible, God never forgave anyone without repentance. It's his righteousness principle. But why did Jesus still pray to the Father about forgiving the unrepentant? It was to demonstrate to us for all time the proper attitude when being persecuted for righteousness' sake. You want them forgiven in your heart and their misdeeds not counted against them, as Stephen later also prayed. Yet, know for sure that God does not forgive without repentance. How do I know they never repented (at least majority of them didn't)? Well, take the soldiers who guarded Jesus' grave, for instance. They saw the resurrection with their own two eyes, and saw mighty angels rolled away th

Life is really defined by the kind of spiritual DNA that flows over or gets imparted into our lives. What life quality we manifest depends on where we source life. If it's Jesus's life, we should manifest its abundance, and this means our lives should reflect his sufferings. The cross is the greatest blessing of all. The Jesus cross is life abundance. This is what we should have in a Jesus DNA transfer. "Just as Christ's sufferings flow over (or are imparted) to our lives, so also through Him our comfort overflows," [2Cor.1]. When the Jesus DNA is transferred to us through our radical and extreme intimacy with him and through a genuine Jesus discipleship, the natural result produced is "patient endurance" of the very same afflictions your discipler suffers. Here's the mechanics: As your discipler walks closer with Jesus (living his life on earth), and he also walks closer to his discipler, the Jesus DNA is imparted to him. There's a genuine Je

Extremely radical. If you're doing things weirdly contrary to the norm and get both loved and murdered for it, you're nothing short of an extreme radical. Jesus was like that.  If Jesus were ordinary and tame, as ordinary and tame as your usual stereo-type, traditional, formal, and respectable church pastor, he'd just be loved, not murdered (or shall we say "persecuted" to use a milder term). Umm, on second thought, most pastors like this whom I know are not really respected; they're quietly tolerated. Extremely radical persons are highly respected--so highly regarded that they're seen as a serious threat. When you are persecuted for your extreme radicalism people secretly fear and regard you highly, though they hate you for it.  But Jesus' extreme radicalism was not out of rebellion. It was a nature. God is unique--and that uniqueness is always to the extreme, because God is all powerful. The Word says, "There is no God like God." O

God often makes me dwell on a single chapter for weeks or even months to see important details of Scriptures which are often overlooked in ordinary bible studies. Like the first part of Matthew 12. It’s quite revealing how Jesus operated his ministry. It’s rather different from the kind of ministry that the church today admires. A Poor Ministry First, Jesus and his disciples went through the grainfields . That says a lot about the finances of the ministry. In those times, poor people and foreigners alone went through the fields after harvest to collect leftovers intended for the poor (Lev.19.10 and 23.22). God made it into a law to support those who were marginalized. If you did that, it didn’t mean you were begging from the field owner. It was God’s provision. God provided the field and the harvest from it, so he owned them all. Thus, he had the right to command field owners to spare a small part of the harvest as some kind of God’s return investment designed for the indigent.

Jesus was a great critic. In fact, he is the greatest critic ever. Why? Because he was a critic who was never guilty of what he criticized about. He taught that before you try to clean the speck of dust in your brother's eye, make sure you are living a holy life. Then you may criticize. People ignorant of Jesus say criticism is bad. They tag it as being holier-than-thou or being judgmental. They support this by quoting Jesus' "Do not judge." That verse is among the most used verse out of context. If we read the whole thing, it says that before you judge make sure you are not guilty of sin. If you are clean, then you may proceed to take out the speck of dust from your brother's eye. "Judge correctly," my Jesus said in John 7.24. Look at how Jesus criticized the Pharisees and Law teachers: Hypocrites! Brood of vipers! You fools! Woe to you! Just look at Matthew 23. Jesus was a great critic. And not only that--he also judged and condemned. Preacher

Sometimes it's the in thing to say--calling Jesus friend. Everybody wants to be friends with him, not understanding what it really means. To most people, it's like having a selfie taken with their favorite showbiz star. "Hey look! I'm with Jesus!" [Picture above from Remi Walle, Unsplash]. Preachers call non-believers to the altar with the promise that Jesus would be their friend. That sounds reassuring and will get crowds going to the altar call. People feel like Jesus just moved into the neighborhood and became one of them. Who wouldn't go to the altar to have that privilege? Sometimes we use terms people don't understand just to lure them to the altar or membership. But who does Jesus see as friend? 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. [John 15] First, Jesus said you'd be his friend