Praise and Worship, Without Issues

July 8th, 2010

Praise and Worship. For most people it is the most  ‘fun’ part of service. Yet, how it is among the most mistreated parts of Christian Life. The issues that have arisen, stem from pride, greed, tradition, culture and the lack of morals that can be found in modern-day liberal ‘christians’.

The issues that are in the congregations:

  1. People simply sing along as they would to a normal non-christian song. Though they sing the words they do not consider their meanings.
  2. Many of them don’t sing at all. Perhaps they feel that their voices are not good or because they feel that they do not know how to sing.
  3. Simply raising one’s hands, closing ones eyes and appearing to be moved by the Spirit is not anything more than a practice that continues even to this very day because “that’s the way our parents used to do it”.
  4. Even if they do not like the way a certain person in the praise and worship team is messing up the praise and worship, they do not rebuke the person and continue with blindly telling the person that they perform very well.

Simple guidelines that the congregation should learn to follow:

  1. When you sing the songs of the Lord, remember to SING them and not recite them. Singing involves feelings and emotions, recitation involves nothing but repeating some words with no consideration.
  2. Even if you feel that you don’t sing well or that you don’t know how to sing, realize this: you don’t need to know how to sing or to be able to sing very well in order to glorify the Lord. Praise and Worship glorifies the Lord, not because it sounds good but rather because of the unity and brotherhood it creates between the people.
  3. Break away from tradition, even if you raise your hands, close your eyes and pretend to be in the Spirit, none of those things makes Praise and Worship come alive. Though you do these things, you are unwilling to do as all the people of God have been mentioned in the Bible as having done: they sang and danced making sweet sounds to the Lord.
  4. If you see the Praise of God being defiled or someone trying to earn accolades for themselves, then tell the person off. The more you continue to tolerate such people, the more the Praise and Worship will become dull. People who have been blessed by God such that they are able to play or sing for the name of the Lord, lose their gifts if they do not acknowledge Him, help them by telling them that they need to remember who has made them capable of performing.

The major issues that come up in the Praise and Worship come from the Praise and Worship Team itself:

  1. People try to be heard, not by God but by the congregation because they want to hear everyone telling them how they performed so well. Excess of volume earns them the exact opposite and so they blame the equipment of the Church or even the very building itself. Instead of repairing their attitude, they wish to ‘repair’ the equipment. Perhaps they even hope to someday ‘repair’ the Pastor, ‘repair’ the Church and maybe even ‘repair’ God.
  2. People get ‘attached’ to a certain instrument/microphone/position so much that they start believing that they have proprietary rights to it or worse still, that they own it. They do not tolerate anyone else where they believe they should be i.e. their place which has their throne.
  3. People try to be seen, Yes, many of them do it. They simply stand around appearing to sing as they look around hoping that someone will be noticing them. Other efforts towards the same include but are not limited to walking in late, raising their hands, closing their eyes, waving to the congregation, smiling around at everyone,etc.
  4. Within the Praise and Worship team, their exists a lot of politics. Most of the congregation does not know about it. People gang up verbally or through their efforts to trouble someone onto whoever becomes their target. Their targets are chosen based on criteria such as Closeness to God, Ability to Play, Popularity among the Congregation, Age or any random reason( also called simply not liking someone),etc. They accuse their target, of being the reason for messing up, not Praising and Worshiping, eventually even small things such as your clothes, your hair, eventually even ridiculous things such as how you smell, how you walk, your name,etc.

The Christian Solutions to these problems:

  1. Our God is not Deaf, he can hear you easily enough, even the smallest of your whispers, your thoughts in your mind, the thoughts of your mind that you cannot know about nor control,etc. The equipment that you once regarded a matter of pride to be able to use suddenly become faulty don’t they? Repair the attitude and then the equipment. The congregation is not listening to you but they are focused on God and so should you be. The focus of Praise and Worship is God not you.
  2. Anything that you have been given (instrument, microphone, position, money, status, experience, fame, etc.) has been given to you by God so that may use it for Him, not so that you can ’shine in the limelight’. Do not love this ‘limelight’. As you grow closer to it, you will start feeling it’s heat and eventually that Heat will consume you. If God wishes to give ‘your property’ (which He gave you in the first place) to someone else because that other person can use it to glorify the Lord more than you, then accept the fact and feel ashamed for the Lord has rejected your offering and has looked with favor on the offering of the other person. Do not make the same mistake Cain made. Church is not like the workplaces of the corporate world where it’s everyone for oneself, Church is everyone for God.
  3. Drawing attention to yourself is the same as trying to distract the congregation towards yourself (also called stealing Glory from God and making an idol of yourself). Demons distract Christians from doing what God wants them to do. Surely, the above sentences describe the ‘great christians’ of the Praise and Worship team. A real Christian will perform for God and leave after that, for that is called being humble. Clear Enough?
  4. Picking on each other, somehow it is reminiscent of a pack of wolves (like corporate people, gangsters, bullies, terrorists, etc). By what authority are you doing these things? By quarreling against your fellow Christian and criticizing him/her you are essentially making the Church like “a kingdom divided against itself” Since such a kingdom cannot stand, and your vain efforts of trying to wreck it have failed, it obviously means that by doing such things, you clearly indicate that you are not part of the Kingdom of God. Learn to accept failure and to accept that God has blessed someone more than He has blessed you. Do not defile the Church by bringing the filth of politics into it. If you cannot stand someone else, then just hang your boots and sit down, you cannot take ‘your’ ‘dominion’ with you to the grave and if you can, then do so in your own time and on your own turf and kindly make a fool of yourself by attempting something so stupid.

Praise and Worship is exactly that: Praising God and Worshiping Him together with the entire congregation and the Praise and Worship team united as one, because they are one in the eyes of God.

Hallelujah and Amen.

Posted in General Articles | 6 Comments »

A Good Wife Who Can Find?

June 23rd, 2010

Proverbs 31: 10-31. These are the Bible’s guide to two things:

  1. For the guys, a guide to find the right girl to marry.
  2. For the girls, a guide to become the right girl to marry.

Before the article proceeds further let us consider a terrible misconception that a lot of married women have:

  1. They believe that they are the good wife referred to in the passage.
  2. Or, they believe that this passage describes married women in general.
  3. Or, they believe that the passage sets such old standards or perhaps even wrong standards to identify a good wife.

All of these ‘beliefs’ are thwarted by the first line. A good wife is hard to find.

Now let us look at the qualities of a good wife as per the passage:

  1. She is trustworthy in the eyes of her husband, she need not be trusted by the world, only by her husband.
  2. She is good to him all the days of her life, a bit more elaborately her love never waivers for her husband.
  3. She is willing to do her duties even those that are tiresome and difficult. “She does not eat the bread of idleness”.
  4. She is willing to go any distance to get the best for her family, but she is not unfair in what she does. She is like a merchant, she does not bargain.
  5. She rises early to prepare for the day, she instructs her servants and prepares food for her household. She does not step on her servants but rather, she is caring towards even them and does not assign all of her tasks to her servants.
  6. She invests where she believes she can earn profit. She works hard towards this profit. She does not leave the burden of being a breadwinner to her husband alone.
  7. She is strong enough to do her tasks, she is not burdened by social stigma and norms that a girl is delicate and weak.
  8. She is virtuous, she gives to those who are needy and to those who are poor.She does not blindly go about giving to her own family (her husband’s in-laws). She gives to the needy and does not deprive her family of anything in the process.
  9. She need not be afraid of problems that are to come, her household is prepared to face them and so is she. “Strength and Dignity are her clothing”.
  10. She is wise, she has not lent her mind to the world or to the worldly ways, she does not teach others to have the weaknesses she may have but teaches them all of her strengths.
  11. She is praiseworthy and so her children and her husband call her blessed. She is praiseworthy not because of her beauty or power or wealth or charm, but because she fears the Lord.
  12. She deserves the fruit of her endeavors for she is a True Believer.

Some conclusions:

  1. For single guys: don’t look out for a beautiful girl who may appear to be the girl of your dreams, rather search for the girl whom the Lord has chosen for you.
  2. For married men: try to grow with your wife in the direction that may lead to the fulfillment of the aforementioned points in the life of your family.
  3. For single girls: don’t try to focus on the ‘in’ things, for they will change before you will even recognize them. Choose instead to follow the Lord, He will give you a loving man as your husband whom you will cherish for your entire life.
  4. For married women: Try to inculcate these values into your life, the changes you make will work great wonders in the life of your family and rest assured that God’s hand will be with your household, not against it. This is of course, if you succeed in building these values in your life.

Now then, look around you and search for such a noble girl or woman, and try to answer to yourself, “A good wife, who can find?” the answer: GOD.

Posted in Biblical Articles | 4 Comments »

The Seven Churches, Which One Am I Going To?

June 8th, 2010

The Seven Churches mentioned in the Book of Revelations: Epheseus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.

While reading about these churches, most people keep certain misconceptions in mind:

  1. Some people believe that the letters are addressed to specific Churches (i.e. only seven Churches among all the Churches of the world). No, they are not and even the locations mentioned are not specific, the passages are addressed to every Church in the world not just seven of them.
  2. Some people question which Church does their Church resemble. Silliness, because though the word Church is used, it refers to the heart, our bodies are the temple of the Lord (1 Corinthians 6: 19). So every physical Church consists of a combination of the seven Churches.
  3. Some people feel that the issues addressed in the letters have nothing to do with them and others need to read the verses very deeply. Despicable nature for a Christian, denial of one’s own fault is denying Christ, for Christ died for sinners not perfect people. The letters address issues that all of us should be wary of and those issues are what this article addresses. Only non-believers are ‘perfect’.

Let us look towards the Churches in detail:

  1. Epheseus: For those of us who have grown well in the faith by God’s grace, doing the right thing becomes a lifestyle at times and slowly good deeds or doing the right thing starts taking priority over the Lord. Such is the falling from the height the letter refers to. Also, there are many of the things one does when one is new to the faith, but as spiritual maturity comes upon one, one starts to feel that those are not things one needs to bother doing anymore, this too is falling from the height, for when one is new in the faith, one follows the Lord like a child (the way He wants us to): one should continue that relationship with God even after growing in faith, after all He has known mankind  in and out for nearly 6000 years, so relative to Him we are little children.
  2. Smyrna: This letter serves as an admonition to remain strong despite going through the worst of conditions. It also indicates that one should despise those who claim to be Christians but are worse off than the non-believers for they claim something and do not fulfill it. Though the letter states it as a fact that one will suffer, it also tells one to be strong and to prepare for this trouble that is to come.
  3. Pergamum: A more detailed explanation of our being in this world but not of this world. Though we are in the City of Satan( the world) we have to remain true to our faith, for we are not citizens of Satan’s City, we are citizens of Heaven. The simple message of this letter is this: do not let the world around you taint you, also despise those who are open to this tainting, for they are ever-seeing and never-believing. This tainting is of course, religious, social and cultural in nature among other sorts.
  4. Thyatira: A reference to those who do somehow manage to grow in Faith, but remain unbalanced, for though they come close to God, yet they remain close enough to this world that they tolerate it’s sinfulness and do not oppose it among oneself let alone among fellow brethren. Rest assured, that such people will suffer along with the world unless they let go of it. Also there are those who wish to grow (which is perfectly right), yet one should not forget that one can only grow as much as God so wills one to grow.
  5. Sardis: A reminder that even though your fellow Christians might say that you are strong in Faith does not necessarily mean that you are strong, it simply is a matter of their perception. And to those are weak but are ‘confident’ of ‘their’ ’strength’ , they should step down from their high horses and face the Lord for then they will face the truth: that their need for help is more immediate than a patient in an emergency ward having a heart attack. They need to come to the Lord again as though they are new to faith, as to why? simply because they ARE new to the faith. However, keep in mind that not everyone who is known for being a person of God is in such shambles.
  6. Philadelphia: Though one might not really have as many blessings as another believer, one must realize that it just doesn’t matter. Being a Christian is not a trading card game where one person is better than another because one has more points( blessings or anything else for that matter). It depends on how much one Loves the Lord. Remember, that though one is below another here on Earth, one might be greater than the other in Heaven.
  7. Laodicea: There are many Christians who can do the right thing, they can live truly Christian lives, but they choose not to (whatever may be the reason, and yes, it is a matter of choice, calling the matter a case of circumstances is nothing more than a non-believers excuse for cowardice and laziness). Such people need to make a final wholehearted decision and not only make that decision but to follow it: whether they are Christians or not? And they should behave exactly as per that decision of theirs.

At the end of all this, one does not belong to any of the seven Churches, one belongs to the Church that is the true Church of Jesus Christ and should live in a way that is appropriate for such a person.

Posted in Biblical Articles | 2 Comments »

Boyfriend, Girlfriend, Sex ?

May 15th, 2010

Relationships, something we all get into or at least want to get into, but what are the consequences of our being so close to another in the eyes of the Lord?

The modernistic preacher who lacks the assertiveness needed will probably tell you that it’s a wonderful thing to do. No doubt, it is a wonderful thing to be in a relationship, but what sort of relationship is the point of concern.

A real answer to the aforementioned question is this: in most cases being any closer than good friends is essentially committing adultery. Most people among you oppose this view simply because they wish to continue living life their way irrespective of God’s way for our life, others believe it but do not want to accept this fact because it is difficult to abstain from relationships that are any closer than being good friends.

An example:

  1. Assume that you have sex with your boyfriend/girlfriend.
  2. After some time you break up.
  3. Eventually you marry someone else and your boyfriend/girlfriend marries someone else too.
  4. Logically enough, both of you have sex with your spouses.
  5. But you have already had sex with another person’s spouse (your boyfriend/girlfriend).
  6. What does this mean you have done?
  7. The answer: ADULTERY.

As to how it is adultery, read on:

  1. In many countries (I don’t need to mention which ones, you know and others know who you are) no longer regard chastity a matter worthy of being kept in mind when approaching the matter of relationships. The norms are now such that a boyfriend and girlfriend are expected to have had physical relations and absence of relations is considered a matter of inferiority. If any society condones sex between a boyfriend and a girlfriend, then that society needs a serious change.
  2. Regarding matters of fidelity, it is now even accepted as a matter of pride to have been an infidel with a high number of ex-partners, the more the number of partners, the more the pride and social acceptance. Many will say that it’s okay as long as it’s just a matter of dating, kissing,etc. Such people do not realize that even those are privileges reserved for the would-be spouse of the person. Inevitably, it is possible and likely in most cases that the person might get married to another person and so such actions are not only adultery but also theft. It is adultery because one has had relations with the would-be spouse of another. It is theft because one has stolen the privileges of the would-be spouse of the person. People who wish to continue being infidels have no right to complain if their partner cheats on them, an infidel cannot call another infidel an infidel, doing so is hypocrisy.
  3. After the breakup (most premarital relationships end as such), both sides suddenly start to feel that the other person was bad from the very beginning. Ask yourself, can such feelings come if one truly loved the person, you know the answer, just as well as everyone else does: No. Yet false feelings of love are common fair among those who break up a relationship , proving that the so called “I Love You” was never true and so one simply lied and so did the other person, and what gained a place in one’s life was not true love in the first place. It is as bad as deceiving oneself and the other person that feelings of love exist between the two. Deception is the game of the Devil, Christians are not deceivers.

Now regarding what one should do regarding such matters:

It is not bad to spend time with a person of the opposite gender, in fact it is advisable for the social growth of a person, yet never closer than good friends. If one begins to feel attracted towards a good friend, then one should ask oneself and the friend whether the other person reciprocates this feeling. Even if both feel the same way about each other, they should still consider a simple fact: do they see themselves getting married somewhere down the line? If not then their relationship is futile and attempts to take it any further than being good friends will either result in a compromised or more possibly a broken marriage or a breakup, none of which our Lord wants us to have.

If anyone has a true opposition justified by Christian or moral principles, please do attempt to prove me wrong.

The Lord expects purity from us, being infidels to feel good about ourselves is not the activity of a Christian or even anyone of human-like moral conduct, being infidels is essentially the behavior of animals who know no better. So are you a senseless animal with no conscience or are you a human made by God and hence capable of loving? Whatever be your answer, behave accordingly keeping in mind that answer.

Posted in General Articles | 22 Comments »

Paperwork does not make or break a Christian.

May 5th, 2010

The particular paperwork, this article refers to is a graduate degree of any sort.

Today’s senselessly complicated and over-competitive world has become a place where one person is called better than another person on the basis of a little piece of paper called a degree without any concern as to the true practical abilities the two may have.

Sadly, even us Christians have gotten absorbed into this crowd, but then again that is inevitable since we are in this world.

But we are not of this world and hence, as Christians we need to have a just and fair approach to the matter of qualification.

Let us first see what an academic degree really is:

  1. It is merely a piece of paper that states that the bearer has completed his/her studies under a particular college in a particular field. These studies are assumed to have brought the bearer’s abilities to a certain standard of acceptability, this standard is dependent only on the college’s pride about what sort of quality they believe they are providing.
  2. It is merely a document that states that the bearer may prove to be capable of doing a particular task, it is not proof of one’s ability but rather only a proof of one’s having completed the studies in a particular field.

Note that this article does not claim in any way that all degree-bearers are unqualified nor does it question their abilities. But still, the article does not deny that most degree-bearers are not even half or rather not even a quarter as qualified as they are made out to be because of their degree.

Some reasons as to why this ‘qualification comes from degrees’ myth is an utter and total lie that should be stripped away from the minds of Christians:

  1. A person who has a degree from a not so good college might be one who could not qualify for a better college or might not have been able to afford going to a better college.
  2. A person who has a degree from a well-renowned college might not have gotten into the college on the basis of his/her performance in an exam, but rather many times (yes, much more often than some might like to believe) because of ‘donations’ (a more dignified way of implying a bribe in this case), because of contacts (knowing the dean or director,etc.) or simply because of being a foreign exchange student. A particular myth exists that the big-shot colleges don’t accept bribes or believe in nepotism and admit their relatives, but no, they do it much more often than one might believe.
  3. A degree is a support of the believe that a person is qualified, it is not proof. Ability does not come from a degree but from God and it is rather that degrees should come from ability (keeping in mind the corruption mentioned above). Giving priority to a degree over God is sin, one should treat the degree only as a proof to the world not to oneself or to other Christians.

Many of us suffer rather unfortunate events in life and are never able to get into college, whatever be the reason, most people around us (which sadly includes many Christians) begin to treat one as if the person were illiterate or socially inept or perhaps even mentally incapable. Yet, a few things the unfortunate people should keep in mind:

  1. Even without a degree or even a high school graduation, one can get a proper job, there are many (yes, the people around you don’t know and many don’t want you to know) jobs one can get even without any formal education. These are not jobs that will make you poor but rather one can earn a good amount of money from them often without having to corrupt oneself (it happens many times in the high-profile jobs). Our Lord was a carpenter,  Jacob was a shepherd, David too was a shepherd. The modern day high profile jobs are comparable to the jobs of the tax-collectors and politicians of the Biblical times.
  2. The Lord does not need a silly little piece of paper that even man can destroy in order to love us. Lack of success in a career does not mean that God has deserted you, it simply means that it was not God’s will for you to gain this success but rather success as per His will which He will make known to you if you ask Him.
  3. Many of the people who became big in life and are remembered even today for their success were not successful from the formal point of view. Albert Einstein failed his mathematics exams, most famous musicians did not have any formal training, most of the great missionaries and evangelists and theologians of the world have been ‘unqualified’. God is the real judge of qualification not any power or person in or of this world.

Essentially, as a Christian or even otherwise, one should not give in to this vain system of the world, yet do not deliberately abstain from it and if you do partake of this system, then do not let it become a priority in life.

It is better to be unqualified and be doing God’s will than to disobey Him and be a qualified sinner.

Posted in General Articles | 87 Comments »

Where Are We Citizens Of?

May 1st, 2010

A seemingly simple question, isn’t it?

It should be easy to answer especially for us Christians, ironically, the answers one gets from Christians and those who claim to be Christians is mostly more off the target than an answer from an unbeliever.

What will the unbeliever say? “I am a citizen of <insert country here>” : Correct

Most Christians will also give the same answer “I am a citizen of <insert country here>” : Wrong!!!

Phillipians: 3:20 says “ But our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ”

The word “commonwealth” here does not mean anything different from what other translations generally say, we are citizens of heaven.

The effect that the lack of that answer appears to have on us Christians is that we appear to not care that we are citizens of heaven but count ourselves as citizens of a worldly country within borders set by the world and it’s people who unlike us Christians, are of this world.

As to the question of why this happens, we remain worldly enough in our behavior that our national identity begins dominating over our identity as a Christian. We begin to look down on everything that the society around us looks down on, everything the society says is good becomes good and everything it says is bad becomes bad.

An example, a young boy living in India had to give up his career at it’s very pinnacle because there was a bigger responsibility on his shoulders which had arisen from persecution at the hands of his own family, he could not go to college because he never finished school. So he wrote to a well-reputed university and explained everything that had happened in his career and how he wanted to pursue a degree in theology. By the grace of the Lord, the university accepted this 12th class dropout through correspondence. In a country like India where nothing except a degree in engineering or business management earned on-campus is given any value among the common folk and correspondence is considered useless (even if it is accredited across the world which includes India, or at least it did include it the last time I checked), many Christians instead of valuing the blessing the Lord gave to that kid and praising the Lord for it, chose instead to follow the foolish ways of a society with a stubborn refusal to accept anything which they cannot believe as true (among fellow Christian brothers, one should believe the other because surely no one will lie about such matters amongst the brothers) and condemned the child and told him to work towards a ‘real’ career.

Surely this does remind many of us who work for the Lord and don’t have a typical 9 to 5  job whose friends often tell us to quit and get a ‘real’ job.

Since we have citizenship of heaven our behavior and more importantly our views should show it. In Romans: 12:11 it says “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”. The worldly ways should not corrupt us and as Christians if we cannot hate the current system of the world which the Bible says is the system of the Devil, then we do not deserve to say that we want to see Jesus’ second coming, for if that were true then one would not follow the worldly ways that lead to Hell but rather would follow the ways of the Lord that reach up to heaven. Behaving like a person with earthly citizenship is the same as denying one’s citizenship in heaven.

The simple point being made here is this: one’s patriotism and one’s upbringing in a particular place should not compel one to forget where we are citizens of, and implies a rather harsh but necessary instruction: Do not defile the house of the Lord and the altar in your heart by bringing your patriotism into them.

Now we can restate, the question in the title of the article: Are we still citizens of this world or are we citizens of Heaven?

Posted in Biblical Articles | 8 Comments »

Changing For The Lord

April 13th, 2010

Change – it’s something everyone wants, yet how to change is a question not too many people have an answer to.

As Christians we need to keep on changing (notice here that change can mean quite a few things: adding something, removing something, transforming something).

A few things that one can keep in mind to help changing oneself as a Christian are:

  1. In order to change one needs to first know that there is a need to change, that is to acknowledge a deficiency, an excess or a problem.One needs to do this in a humble manner and confess the shortcoming before the Lord. One cannot fix something unless the belief that it is broken exists.
  2. When one wishes to change, one needs to know the way to change. Since everyone is different, there is no one single way to change. Yet, as Christians we have an advantage that is truly wonderful: God knows us in and out and knows exactly how we can change. So, essentially one should ask the Lord how to go about changing.
  3. Even when one knows how to change, the true strength to change comes from God and not from within as some might say. Human effort to change can succeed but does not bring any glory to God, whereas, relying on God’s awesome strength to change brings glory to God.
  4. When one changes one needs to know where they wish to go with this change, an effort to change without any direction in mind is a vain effort and surely God will not help anyone in such a matter. If one fixes a faulty part in a machine that had a problem, if one does not know about the part used for the replacement (what is the part’s quality, what precautions need to be taken to prevent the problem from occurring again,etc.) then it is as bad as not having fixed it at all.
  5. When one changes with the help of the Lord, to make sure that His name is not dishonored, one has to make sure that one will not revert back to the original state and hence dishonor the Lord in the world’s eyes, for failure comes from us and never from God. After one has changed one should be willing and capable of condemning one’s older condition regarding the matter.

That the Lord wants us to change according to His requirements, and wants to help us change, is a good enough proof and reason that change is not only inevitable (if one does not change for good, one automatically deteriorates and changes for the worse) but also necessary (being content with everything and not wanting to move ahead as per God’s plan is a sin)

For those among us who truly believe in the Lord: A change one wants, may not be according to the Lord’s will and hence still wanting that change even after knowing of the Lord’s disapproval of the matter is a sin. The Lord wants us to change but whether we would call it good or bad (by our standards) does not matter, it is as per the Lord’s will and hence is for the better (by His standards: the ones that Really matter)

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Relevance Of The Law Today

March 17th, 2010

A dictionary defines the word “Law” as “A rule of conduct established by custom, agreement or authority”.

Romans:14:6 says “He who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. He also who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God; while he who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.”

For everyone there are some things to do that are right and others that are wrong. The Law is something that enforces the difference between good and bad. So, if one follows the law one does right and if one breaks the law he does wrong.

Yet, what importance does the Law of the Old Testament have for us as Christians today?

Matthew:5:17-19:

17-”Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them.

18-For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

19-Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Most of us today tend to believe that after Jesus came and freed us of sin we are freed from the Law. Yet Jesus himself clearly established the importance of the Law and furthermore he came to fulfill it and fulfill it he did. Even as he was being crucified Jesus was obeying the Law.

Essentially, Law is doing what is appropriate to be done by one in the eyes of God, it does not hold to particular tasks. Or in a simpler way it is obedience to God and submission to His will. Now, since God desires different things from different people (His will is not the same for everyone, He wants one to do something and wants another to do something else, although so is not always the case) the Law applies differently to everyone.

Yet we say that there is the Old Law or Covenant (the law of Moses given to him on Mount Sinai)  and the New Law or Covenant (the law established through the dominion of our Lord).

There are differences between the two:

  1. The Old Law was applicable to those to whom it was given, i.e. the Israelites in the wilderness and so applied to them but did not apply to the Gentiles. The New Law since it is not one Law for everyone and is unique to each individual, applies to everyone not only to one group of people.
  2. The Old Law is written down and is absolute, the New Law varies not only from person to person but also from situation to situation, for God may want you to do something now but to abstain from it later.
  3. The Old Law mentions the outcome of it’s being broken, the New Law is a manifestation of God’s will and so God alone decides what the outcome of his will being disobeyed is (He may punish the offender lightly or heavily). So the New Law puts God in the position of authority rather than those who enforce the law.
  4. The Old Law is learned by reading it, the New Law can only be learned by being close to God and asking Him what is the proper thing to do.

So Since Jesus fulfilled every bit of God’s will for him, He fulfilled the Law but did not abolish it, only renewed it.

And by His fulfilling the law, He set an example before us so that we too may follow the Law which is a covenant between God and each one of us written in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

(Note: this article has nothing to do with the laws of the world (the Constitution), do not use this teaching as an excuse to break the law.)

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How God Wanted Life To Be

March 9th, 2010

When God created man and woman, what sort of life did He want for them to live in the Garden of Eden?

The following verses from the book of Genesis describe the sort of life God wanted His children to have:

1:28- And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

1:29- And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.

2:15- The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.

2:16- And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;

2:17- but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

2:18- Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

From the aforementioned verses, here are some conclusions:

  1. God gave man dominion over everything on the earth. God did not want man to be under anyone but God himself, sadly today not only are people subdued by other people but also by things such as money, work, worldly pleasures and quite ironically even worldly power and so-called superiority.God commanded man to subdue the earth (that is to be above worldliness) not to subdue fellow man or to submit to the world.
  2. God gave man more choice than can be imagined. To have every edible plant from across the entire Earth as his food complete with the choice of which ones to eat. God wanted man to exercise the free will God had given him.Yet this freedom of choice was not unconditional (if it were, then man would be lawless). God wanted man to live by a certain standard. Whatever God did not allow (for whatever reason either because man should not take something that he does not deserve or because man should not stoop down so low as to partake of something unacceptable in the eyes of God) man should not have done.
  3. God did not make man to be a lazy bum. When God put him in the Garden of Eden man was given the responsibility of looking after the Garden and to work in it. God’s view of ideal life for man did not involve the typical idea of paradise (sitting around in a beautiful place being fed all sorts of delicacies,etc.).
  4. God did not want man to be lonely. God wanted man to have a family that would give him company of his own kind (apart from the company of God which was with him). God wanted family members to be helpers to each other, much more suitable than helpers from among the living creatures of the earth.

Upon close observation one can see that all of those conditions can be met even today:

  1. Man can and should still be under only God and not submit to fellow man or worldly things.
  2. Man can and should still make decisions of his own within the limits God sets in the life of everyone.
  3. Man can and should still do work as per whatever tasks God assigns to him.
  4. Man can and should still have a family and within the family each member should help the others.

Man lost something when he was removed from Eden, but man did not lose the chance to live up to God’s expectations and desire.

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The Sabbath As It Is Today

March 4th, 2010

“And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation.” (Genesis:2:2-3)

This seventh day- the Sabbath.

To most modern day Christians what does it mean or rather what should it mean?

General views of the sabbath in the eyes of most modern day Christians includes:

  1. a day that is to be revered as it says in the Ten Commandments, and this that holding church service on Sunday fulfills that command.
  2. a day that only Jews should care about and this that it need not be revered.

The first view is one which is understood once and then just put at the back of the head and so this ‘fulfillment’ of the command does not really occur because Church becomes a routine thing and many forget that the entire day ought to be actively considered as time that should be spent with God.

The second view stems from Matthew 12:1-12 and other similar events in the Bible. Some people believe that Jesus’ response to the Pharisees gives modern Christians a right to oppose the Sabbath in the same manner that one should oppose the wrongs of the Pharisees.

Now onto  what it should mean to us as Christians:

  1. The fact that the Sabbath is to be treated as a day of rest and that one should do no ordinary work is an exhortation to us that we should diligently do our work in the rest of the week.The word ordinary does not mean ordinary as is the general meaning of the word but rather what your work usually is (for instance for a banker- banking, for a chef- cooking,etc.).One should do extraordinary deeds on the Sabbath as per the definition of the word ordinary set above.
  2. The fact that God rested after He had finished His work is an exhortation to us that we should plan beforehand what we wish to achieve during the week and finish it by the sixth day. Essentially this, that we should keep a goal in mind and strive to achieve it.
  3. The aforementioned point also indicates that we should put our work( which sadly for many Christians takes priority over the Lord) behind us when we rest and spend time with God.
  4. This day need not be bound by any calendar or any particular day of the week (for instance not bound by the Hebrew or Gregorian calendar, nor bound by being Sunday or Saturday,etc.). This is so because not what time the Sabbath is observed matters but rather how it is observed.
  5. The response Jesus gave to the Pharisees implies that the rest of the Sabbath does not call upon irresponsibility from anyone. Just as Jesus said, if trouble comes upon anyone on the Sabbath then it is the person’s duty to take charge of the matter as the person would anytime of the week.
  6. The Lord Jesus Himself said that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. He did not just say that, he also proved it from the scriptures themselves.

In short, The Sabbath should be valued as a day to thank and praise God for everything in the past days of the week and to not be burdened by the work of the week (for in doing so there is no rest) and to do good and not to be irresponsible.

The point to be noted in the verses from Genesis quoted above is that God blessed that day, how rightly so.

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