Smallest Seed

Each time I go over the story of Balaam in Numbers 22 to 24, I can't help but be amazed. The guy really had a close personal relationship  with God although he was a false prophet. In fact, he was a sorcerer or warlock. God personally came to him, talked with him, guided him and gave him powers. How can a sorcerer have close relationship with God? And I mean really close. He talked with God in the real sense of the term. And God really talked back to him and gave him specific, direct and accurate instructions, something a lot of Christians cannot claim to enjoy today. Often, what we claim that God told us is nothing but wild guess. We pray and guess what God's answer is and often find ourselves wrong. We talk to God but usually face a blank wall. And often we don't see or hear anything in the spirit realms so we depend on what we see and hear in the flesh. But Balaam heard God, and not just figuratively. He was "one whose eyes clearly see" and &qu

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

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

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

It's one of Jesus' strange statements. He was glad the smart guys didn't get a hint of anything he said. And to think that the context was on repentance. He was glad that the scholarly failed to understand about repentance? Didn't he want everybody to repent of sins and be saved? Here's the passage: “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do. [Matthew 11] It's something similar to what he told Judas (not Iscariot) about not revealing himself to the world. Judas was confused. Didn't God so loved the world that he gave Jesus to save it? Then why would he not reveal himself to the world? Jesus said he'd only reveal himself to those who really loved him, and these were people who really kept his words.  Jesus reveals himself only to "little children" and he even warne

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

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