Tag Archive - Christ

Proof of Life

November 9, 2010 in Challenges with 0 Comments

I am busy listening to sermon series by Erwin McManus, from Mosaic Church in Los Angeles. The sermon series is about 1 John and the title is Proof of Life.

This morning’s sermon really grabbed my, on the most powerful proof of real life within you is if you Love.

Now, love has become a really misused word over time. I mean, we say, I love my car, I love steak, and then in the same breath we will say ‘I love my wife’ or ‘I love God’.

Now, 1 John 3:14 says

Our love for each other proves that we have gone from death to life. But if you don’t love each other, you are still under the power of death.

The love that John is speaking about here, it the same love that Christ showed to us when He died on the cross for us. If we have life within us, which is the Holy Spirit, we have no choice but to have love within us.

You cannot say you have love within you, if you say demeaning things to other people. I you speak hate over other people or if you have racist thought about a certain demographic of people.

To be able to say that you love, you must treat all people like Christ treated them. Teach them out of love, and treat them like you would like to be treated at all times.

For me personally this is sometimes a really big challenge. We so often get angered out of some stupid thing somebody does to you, that you would say something along the lines of, ‘This person is SO stupid’. It does not take a lot to say this, but do we always realise what the impact of those words can have on the other person’s life? If you say this to the wrong person, you might potentially influence them in such a way that they will not want to have anything to do with the other person, and that specific relationship might be exactly what will be needed for the other persons salvation.

Think about it…

We really need to be very careful with what we say to and about our neighbors at all times, and as difficult as it may seem, we must start to think before we speak out of anger.

Yes, love goes much further that just saying something of somebody, but what the heart is full of will be evident in the way you live, and what you say to other people.

Repost: Extending your basic faith

August 25, 2010 in Challenges with 0 Comments

I stumbled upon this post of mine again today, and really felt moved to repost it here for everybody to mull about it again…

jesus-cross

What is your basic faith? Is it believing that God created the heavens and the earth, or is it believing that Jesus died for OUR sins on the cross, or is it simply believing that everything happened by chance and there is no eternity waiting for us?

If your basic faith is the last one, I want to commend you, in really having great faith, as this is a bigger stretch of faith for me, than having faith in a Creator and an Omnipotent and Omnipresent God.

To really believe that we humans, and other animals, have just happened form nothing, and to be passionate about it, really is amazing to me. How emotions, and all that goes with it, could just happen. That the drive that all of us have in us, is just because…

I have great faith in the fact that God created everything. That I am not here by accident, and that God really has a plan for my life, which He is already putting in place. By having this faith, I want to extent it by doing what Peter tells us in 2 Peter 1:5-9 (The Message)

So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.

By doing this, I really want to develop and grow in my relationship with God. I want to be able to get up in the morning, and tell the person on the street corner that Jesus loves him, and pray for him, and be able to, confidently, lead that person to the cross, and give him/her eternal salvation.

I want to be able to take my musical talents, and be able to play to people in such a way, as that they will want to know what is different in me. I want to be able to bless people just by playing music.

A guy in our worship team came to me one day, and said that me and my wife brings healing through our music that we make, and I want to start seeing that. Not just play and be recognised, but to start making a difference for the kingdom, by using my talents that God gave me. To live my calling, and to be able to lead people to the cross.

I believe that we all have a certain thing that God gave us, that we need to use for His glory, to lead the unsaved to the cross. Let us all go out, spend time with God, and hear from Him how we are going to be able to do these things with our talents, and let us change the world one day at a time, through the power of Him that gives it to us.

Majesty

June 4, 2010 in Challenges with 5 Comments

This morning, during our weekly get together of three friends, we were only 2 this morning, my friend Danie made the comment whether we always realise how blessed we are to be able to call God Abba?

He is the majesty of majesties, and here we, sinful humans have the opportunity to go sit at His feet, and call Him Father?

Why is this?

Only through the blood of Christ. Through Christ we are seen in the same light that God sees Jesus, and that is simply amazing.

We need to start to realise that we have been created to worship, and in that we have only one goal on earth, and that is to worship God. This need to worship is exactly the reason why so many people that does not know Jesus, worship money or fame, and we need to show them Who it is we were created to worship.

We need to show them the Majesty, Mercy and Grace of God, and introduce them to Jesus, to enable to grab this wonderful gift.

Throw in the towel

December 1, 2009 in Challenges with 3 Comments

throwtowel

NO, not that way. Let us read John 13 and take it from there

John 13:1-17 (The Message)

Just before the Passover Feast, Jesus knew that the time had come to leave this world to go to the Father. Having loved his dear companions, he continued to love them right to the end. It was suppertime. The Devil by now had Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, firmly in his grip, all set for the betrayal.

Jesus knew that the Father had put him in complete charge of everything, that he came from God and was on his way back to God. So he got up from the supper table, set aside his robe, and put on an apron. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the feet of the disciples, drying them with his apron. When he got to Simon Peter, Peter said, "Master, you wash my feet?"

Jesus answered, "You don’t understand now what I’m doing, but it will be clear enough to you later."

Peter persisted, "You’re not going to wash my feet—ever!"

Jesus said, "If I don’t wash you, you can’t be part of what I’m doing."

"Master!" said Peter. "Not only my feet, then. Wash my hands! Wash my head!"

Jesus said, "If you’ve had a bath in the morning, you only need your feet washed now and you’re clean from head to toe. My concern, you understand, is holiness, not hygiene. So now you’re clean. But not every one of you." (He knew who was betraying him. That’s why he said, "Not every one of you.") After he had finished washing their feet, he took his robe, put it back on, and went back to his place at the table.

Then he said, "Do you understand what I have done to you? You address me as ‘Teacher’ and ‘Master,’ and rightly so. That is what I am. So if I, the Master and Teacher, washed your feet, you must now wash each other’s feet. I’ve laid down a pattern for you. What I’ve done, you do. I’m only pointing out the obvious. A servant is not ranked above his master; an employee doesn’t give orders to the employer. If you understand what I’m telling you, act like it—and live a blessed life.

Reading this, and understanding what washing feet meant in Jesus’ time, a chore for the lowliest servant of the household, this passage starts to take a whole new meaning.

According to this passage where Jesus says that if He doesn’t wash Peter’s feet, Peter won’t be able to be part of what Jesus came to do, and that is to SERVE.

We as Christians need to start getting out, and getting sweaty for Christ. We need to start serving people, ALL people. Especially those that would never expect to be served. The orphans and the widows, the needy and the sinners.

Jesus never served in the well off places, but He went into the slums of the times, and ate with prostitutes and tax collectors.

I challenge all of you, and myself, to start putting a towel around our waists and to start serving. Especially over this Christmas period. Why don’t we try and get one demographic of people needing service, and go out and bless them with what they least expect. Let us go out, and preach the name of Christ, and IN the name of Christ, to the people that need to hear it the most.

Switch to our mobile site