The Issue of Christians Marrying a Non-Believer And Going To Bars
Answering The Issue of Marrying Unbeliever and Going To Bars
I received a letter from a friend asking me two main issues that I believe almost every Christians should be aware of.
The first issue was all about having a relationship with a non-believer. Nowadays, there are Christian singles who used to hold on to the idea of having a relationship with a non believer, and after wards, they will try to share them the gospel until it becomes a Christian.
Most of these Christians point out to some “very rare” cases of a believer-non believer marital relationship that worked out well.
The second issue was about going to bars or music lounges. Is it ok for a Christian to go to these kind of places?
How To Preach Effectively And Get People Listening To You
Learning How To Preach Effectively
I hope this will really help those who are being trained right now to preach. This is also very helpful to those ordinary members who are being trained to lead a devotional study during a prayer meeting or camping.
There are lots of factors that affect the mood of people to get them listening to you. The past week may sometimes be very straining to your listeners which caused them to have “floating minds” on Sunday morning. Some of them may also be experiencing some problems.
However, there are some factors that can really be attributed to the preacher. And these are things where we can do something to improve the rate of our listeners. Here are some effective tips to have your audience listen to you.
The Two Deadly Sins of Ministers And Pastors
Sexual Immorality and Love Of Money, Is A Real Threat To Pastoral Office
Ministers and pastors are like celebrities where slightest mistakes can lead to various issues. But what sins can kill the minister’s ministry?
First, we have to identify first what makes up a good minister. I already have written some articles about requirements and works of ministers and pastors.
You may want to check the following articles:
http://lighthouseresource.blogspot.com/2008/09/good-workman.html
http://lighthouseresource.blogspot.com/2008/02/paul-galatia-and-gospel.html
http://lighthouseresource.blogspot.com/2008/02/qualification-of-pastoroverseerbishop.html
http://lighthouseresource.blogspot.com/search/label/Pastors
Under the qualification of pastors and overseers, you will see there that a minister, overseer, or bishop must be morally, socially, doctrinally and spiritually qualified so that he can effectively perform his duties and responsibilities.
Disciples’ Developing Deep Divine Devotion (Part 2)
Downfall and Devolution in Devotion of Disciples at Ephesus Since a great pitfall of disciples is neglecting to develop the discipline of deep devotion to their Divine Master, it’s basically similar to falling out of love of the Lover of our souls, as can be seen in...
Disciples’ Developing Deep Divine Devotion (Part 1)
Thirsty hearts are those whose longings have been wakened by the touch of God within them.
A.W. Tozer
As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. Psalm 42:1
INTRODUCTION
One of the great sins of any disciple of Christ is neglecting the discipline of developing deep divine devotion to his Divine Deliverer!! This is basically a violation of the first part of His Great Commandment that summarized the whole Law and the Prophets, as God said in
Deuteronomy 6:5,6
5And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
6And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
which our Lord and Savior re-echoed in
Matthew 22:37-40
37Jesus said unto him,
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38This is the first and great commandment.
39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
and other parts of the gospels, as well as re-echoed in the epistles of Apostles.
To be good disciples of Christ, we have to undergo self discipline to develop deep devotion to his Divine Deliverer. Implicit in the disciples’ discipline with diligence (take note that the words “disciple” and “discipline” have the same root word) is the process of learning and teaching, where disciples learn how to be, to believe, to behave, and to develop doctrines and deeds that would define their identity in relation to their Master who courted, pursued, and wooed them to have an intimate fellowship of love with Him. In His Great Commission, our Divine Master commanded His disciples to go and multiply the process of learning and teaching that He had started, He being the First Fruit with Him as the Seed to be sown to the world in darkness of their ignorance, iniquities, inequities, and idolatries with the end to reap other new birthed disciples with new natures who themselves shall continue the process of discipling others.
Before we continue our discussion, let’s have some basic definitions of terms to make our discourse here clearer:
Love And Respect Book Review
Love and Respect Is One Of The Best Books About Love
I can only recommend a very few books about love in marital relationships. There are only very few books out there that delivers the true message of love in marital relationship.
In the book of Ephesians, there are two main keys in a successful marital relationship; Love And Respect. And this book is what it’s all about. It deals with both sides, husband and wife.
If you are really into discovering the Biblical way of treasuring your spouse and keeping him or her in your lifetime, then I strongly suggest that you read this book.
Steps in Becoming A Blessing
A Step By Step Guide In Becoming A Blessing
We already know that becoming a blessing to others is God’s purpose to every single human being. We also know that God did not only make this system to work entirely for his own benefit, but we have seen that God blessed humanity first and that he continuously blesses those who bless others.
However, there are still lots of people who are having difficulty in doing this noble thing that God intended for us to do. I enumerated four main steps in becoming a blessing.
Please note that I used the phrase “Forget yourself”. The ultimate hindrance to becoming a blessing is being too concern for own self. This is the main reason why we cannot become a blessing to others because of too much love for oneself. Becoming a blessing is more on forgetting your own self and giving the rest to others.
Step 1: Forget yourself and learn to love God above all (Matthew 6:33). 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Sometimes, even Christians fail to love God above all. They gave too much importance to the blessing rather to the giver of blessings which results to idolatry. The passage above is clear enough to remind us that we do not have to worry about anything, but we have to seek first his kingdom. If you remember our lesson last year about “Kingdom of God”, it is not a place, but it is a system.
Benefits of Being A Blessing
Introduction
Last week we discussed about God’s purpose for us, to become a blessing. Today, we will discuss about the benefits of becoming a blessing. This will answer our question, “what is it for me in becoming a blessing”?
Before we go to the details of becoming a blessing, we have to understand that God designed the whole system with a WIN-WIN situation. Following the rule of “Blessed to be a Blessing,” God did not design the system to be only in favor of one side.
God see to it that the whole system works for the benefit of everybody. In fact, if our church only follows the whole system, I believe that we will be reaching the point that “NO ONE IS IN NEED”.
Is this impossible? The fact is, it did happen in the life of the first church that “no one is in need”. Let us see what the Bible says in Acts 4:32-35.
32All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. 33With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. 34There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.
As a result, of becoming one in heart and mind, they try to share “everything they have” and as a result, “there were no needy persons among them”, everybody enjoys. Now, you may see that those people, who gave, lose something. The passage did not mention about losing something for those people who gave.
You can never see in the Bible that those people who gave losses something except the next passage, Acts 5:1-11. A couple was among the believers who sold their land to offer it to the Lord (note that giving is more like offering to the Lord). This is what happens. After selling it, they kept some of the amount for themselves (maybe just to taste what they have labored for), and gave the rest to the apostles.
What happens next? Peter rebuked Ananias and after rebuking, he fell dead. After 3 hours, his wife came not knowing what happened, Peter asked her if it was really the price Ananias got for the land. Sapphira, lied (maybe to protect her husband’s dignity). After Peter rebuked her, she also fell dead.
Now let us go to the benefits of becoming a blessing.
Blessed To Be A Blessing
How To Live A Life Of Becoming A Blessing
Malachi 3:10
10Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”
Introduction
The word “Give” was mentioned 869 times in the Bible while the word ”Gave” was mentioned 633 times. The word “Offer” was mentioned 123 times, while the word “Offered” was mentioned 90 times. “Tithe” was mentioned 13 times and finally “tithes” 15 times.
Overall, the idea of giving or being generous was mentioned 1,713 times, thus making this as one of the most highly emphasized themes in the Bible. This is why no matter what they say against tithing or giving or as becoming generous as they say it to be “unscriptural”, never and do not believe in them. And even if until now, you do not believe about the idea of becoming generous, I do hope that our simple word search will give you the idea of how important this is to our Lord.
I tried comparing the word “love” or the idea of “to love”, the word love was mentioned 513 times while the word loved was mentioned 89 times and finally the word “loves” 68 times. Overall, it sums up to 670 times. Note that “LOVE” is the central theme of the Bible but the idea of giving and becoming generous as a practical application of love was indeed given a great emphasis in the Bible.