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Showing posts with the label Worship

Restoring Worship to that of Heaven's

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It's imperative that we develop sensitivity to what God's mood is and what he's up to. Moses knew when God was mad and when he was pleased. More so Jesus, the Son. Thus, the church should ask why God is allowing the church to stop meeting during this Covid crisis. What's God up to? [ Image above from this site] . It's not something incidental, fortuitous or accidental. No such thing to God. Everything has a purpose. So why did he allow a stop to church gatherings? Persecutions have tried to close down churches but what we have today is something different (though it may eventually lead to it if the anti-Christ enters the picture and starts ruling the world). Church is closed down for safety and survival, even of its own members, from a deadly virus. God allowed the virus to make governments prohibit all types of gatherings the world over. This is unprecedented in world history. In the process, churches are affected. So it's far from being systematic perse

A High Worship Most Displeasing to God

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Image from Pinterest. A better perspective for God to look from. It was a silly thing to do because from any angle, wrong is still wrong to God. You can't take him to a "better" place to get a "better" perspective of things and perhaps change his mind. It's even useless to take him somewhere "higher"---like the "top of Peor overlooking the waste land" and at another time on a "barren height"---and try to pretend to be spiritually high to get him to your side. Balak thought God was like that. And most of us often think God is like that. I know church folks who always like to sound spiritual. You see them post nothing on FB, for instance, but spiritual or inspiring posts. To them, spiritual is like that and they think God is pleased with it. But God is pleased solely by faith, and the kind that merely walks with God like Enoch did---not by appearances of spirituality. And "walking" with God means a daily

Pursuing Jesus' Most Hated Teaching

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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

Music is the Life of the Church?

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I was typing an article while my dear wife was listening to a Christian radio program when the guest said over the radio how music is the life of the church, or something to that effect. He discussed how church should zero in more on music today because God's presence is already felt strongly through music to touch people's lives even before actual church service begins.  We're not just criticizing what church people do here--we believe that faithfulness to God's Word and ways is better than what we think we accomplish in church and in our ministries.  To many church people, "worship" is singing and music. That has been the wrong notion going around for decades now, even centuries perhaps. We think that good church music (and what we mean by "good" is music that "touches" us and makes us cry and go to the altar) is a major part of worship, if not being worship itself. So we see church musicians and worship teams and choir member

They All Call It Easter

Though nowhere in Scriptures can you find the word "Easter" or see the practice in the Acts church, Christians today still call it that--Easter Sunday. They don't mind if it has pagan origins--they just call Jesus' resurrection Easter because the world does. They settle with anything popular. That's how unthinking Christianity is today. They just go with the trend in the world. And neither can I figure out how Easter eggs and bunnies connect with Jesus' resurrection. After suffering terribly to pay the penalty for our sins, Jesus finds churches today equating what he did to eggs and rabbits and naming it with something pagan--and they're not bothered one bit. I can't understand why they can't get rid of the easter thing and just officially call it Jesus' Resurrection Sunday. It's no different calling it Witchcraft Sunday, then. Easter is clearly pagan and is said to be derived from Ishtar, a celebration of the supposed resurrection of

Veil that Hides Fading Glory

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Morning Meditations Religious veils keep you looking good---even build you mega churches---but they decrease God's glory in you. Remember the Kingdom principle---God's ways mixed with man's ways cannot result to God's glory. More so, anything purely of man, even "born-again" man. The more you hide your true self, the more you lose glory. This was Moses' predicament. Yes, the ministry he received had tremendous glory so that the Israelites could not look straight at his face, says 2 Corinthians 3. But the glory faded the more he tried to hide the fact with a man-made veil. Churches today, too, hide their fading glory behind veils of good Sunday worship programs, good and expressive singing, non-stop worship, overnight prayer meeting, good preaching, titles, degrees, concerts, seminars and conferences, feeding programs, and so-called "church planting." Once upon a time, when their ministries were newly born, they had awesome glory. Most n

Who Said We Need to Worship Each Time?

Before I start anything here, I want to assure readers that I believe we need to worship God always, endlessly, because He deserves nothing less. After making myself clear now, I start to detonate a bomb--who said we need to worship each time? By "worship" I mean the way most churches take it to mean today--singing and music. Before they have the Word preached to them, they need to "worship" first. So they sing songs after their prelude and Scripture reading and etc. They say worship in this manner is vital, without which no Word would be anointed for preaching. If you want God to come down and give understanding for his Word, we have to worship good. That's what they say. And it's been that way for decades, if not centuries. Why? Why do we need to worship? In Jesus' Days Then I go back to the bible and see Jesus. He preached the Word and wonderful things happened. God came down to perform incredible feats--and that without worshiping 

Concert Mania for God: But is HE Really There?

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All day worship, non-stop worship, super concerts. Wow! With the coming of  electronic and digital technology, perfecting sound systems have become possible. Human voice and instrumentals have never blended so accurately harmonious before--and voice ranges incredibly reached with amazing clearness, perhaps like that of heaven's own music. So churches today have zeroed in on music more than at any time in history.  They have come up with "non-stop worship" and concerts. In fact, they spend a lot of money for these and send their youths investing time, effort, and money, and even health on the same. They spend their energies and sleepless nights over them.  I love music and concerts to the Lord. I love the way some individuals master the Lord's intense presence and "bring it down" to where they are so that people around get the bread crumbs that "fall from the table" of such individuals. Wow! Praise God! I wish I had the same anointing

Foolish Programs

Recently the Lord gave me something. It was like a question--how come people make formal programs when they meet for prayer, but pray differently when face to face with real danger? For instance, in a district prayer meeting. Churches gather together and follow a formal program. There is an opening remark, an opening prayer, a welcome remark, a message, and then they pray. The same thing happens in local church prayer meetings. When the danger is just imagined or merely possible, they can afford to be formal like that. But when the danger strikes, I wonder if they can be as formal and orderly? When the Tsunami in Japan was happening last year, I'm sure they didn't have formal programs when they prayed. I can imagine they were praying where they were and just crying out to God. Even after that, I bet they didn't bother with programs. They just assembled together and prayed. They didn't look for any program or ceremony. But I'm pretty sure, too, that after

An Idol is Crafted

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"An idol is crafted...with gold and silver" [Isaiah 40.19] An idol is crafted. That's a big revelation. Idols are never just made carelessly--the best human effort and talent are applied to casting it. "Crafting" means the best and sophisticated artistry. When we get careless and blinded by worldly exposure and succumb to it, we start giving things we deem important our best. Like, in our jobs, businesses, homes, families, ideals, studies, careers, friendships, and even churches. Church leaders do not just want to read the bible--they enroll  in seminaries for titles and degrees. And yet the Word is not seen in them powerfully. Remember this one thing: beware when you give your best to something and devote so much time to perfecting it. It may have become an idol in your heart. Giving your best to anything you do so that God is glorified is good. But we should beware not to overdo it. There's always the danger of making idols out of them. Do your

Thorn on The Side

"Solomon transferred Pharaoh's daughter (his wife) from David's City to her palace...because the city was holy.." [2 Chron.8] The magnificent temple in Jerusalem had just been dedicated with lavish garb. In fact, it was built to the letter of God's Word handed down from David to Solomon. And the Lord even appeared to Solomon, telling him, "I've heard all your prayers." Everything seemed perfect. But the problem was, right at the outset, Solomon had married Pharaoh's daughter, and now he was hiding her from God. He had a thorn on the side, a skeleton in his spiritual closet. So many church people and ministers want to do great things for God, build him great temples or offer him lavish worship programs or concerts. They do everything according to the Word of God. They even have signs and wonders, the Lord himself making an appearance during the meetings. And indeed, everything's genuine. The Lord is really there. But the problem

Worldly Christmas

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When December comes you can’t help but enter a mall or department store and take a look inside. They got lots of glittering things that make their merchandise look more appealing and attuned to the Season. Why do we find ourselves more prone to buy at Christmas time? Because some smart aleck said that Christmas is a time for giving gifts. And I’m sure that aleck was a big businessman. And a smarter aleck said Christmas was Jesus’ birthday and all Christians should celebrate Christmas. But I don’t know how to reconcile my Jesus with a worldly Christmas. Then the unthinking churches followed suit. They re-echoed the smart alecks and confirmed that, yes, Christmas was Jesus’ birthday and being so we had to give each other gifts. And these churches even bought Christmas lights (how do you connect the lights to Jesus? The star from the east?) and Christmas trees and little reindeers and Santa Clauses they hanged on the trees. The church gave their share in spreading a paganistic world

The True Sabbath

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Thousands of years after my Jesus radically demonstrated what Sabbath meant (or demonstrated how to break it) church people still have funny ideas about it. They still reek of Pharisaical religiosity while they all claim thorough understanding and expertise on the subject. What’s the true Sabbath? One born again, after discussing the matter with an Adventist, asked me why Christians decided to turn Sabbath into a Sunday affair, obviously confused. She looked convinced that Sabbath ought to be observed on Saturdays because that’s how the Jews observed it in the Old Testament. I asked her why she didn’t see how Jesus broke it in the New Testament. Why see the Jews and not Jesus? Jesus was the one who died for us. Then sometime in the recent past, some church leaders told us that the only way to observe Sabbath was to do nothing else but to go to church on Sundays. Thus, church people spend all Sunday in their church buildings from morning till evening. That way, you fulfill

Seeing and Hearing God is Genuine Church

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Church has devolved through centuries of nothing--nothing but men's efforts, achievements, doctrines, and programs. What we call "church" today is a social gathering shrouded in "born again" religion. But John tells us of a genuine church. This church is a real fellowship of believers. And the fellowship is based on supernatural factors: seeing God and hearing God. This is the true basis for church. "We confirm to you what we have seen and heard. This way, you will also have fellowship with us," [1Jn.1.3].  This is among Kingdom principles on being God's flesh. John had to proclaim or pass on to them what they (the apostles) had seen and heard--they saw and heard the Life, who is God. They touched, talked to, and smelled God. Yes, God himself! And they wanted to pass that on to us so we may have true fellowship. Genuine fellowship in church is making their experience our experience. It's never about programs or activities or gatherings or

Having God's Favor: An Outline

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Image from  groningen.nieuws.nl. I thought of posting here a bible study outline I did for a friend. It's about having God's favor: Verse : Esther 2.12-17 Title : "Getting the King's Favor" Passage : [12] Before a girl's turn came to go into King Xerxes' chamber, she should have completed 12 months of rigid beauty treatments required of women--6 months for oil of myrrh treatment, and 6 months of perfumes and cosmetics. [13] And then she went to the king in this way: she would be given a free choice on whatever she wished to take with her from the Harem to the king's palace (to attract the king with). [14] Come evening, she would enter the king's bedroom, and in the morning be sent to a place in the Harem under the care of Shaashgas, the eunuch in charge of the concubines. She was not allowed to see the king again unless he wished for her and called her by name.  [15] When it was Esther'