Life Blog

I believe in Christ. But before I came to believe in Christ, there were people who constantly ministered and witnessed to me that indeed Jesus Christ is real. During that time I had many questions. I had doubts. And it was a struggle in me of whether I will believe these people. Although I attended the Bible studies, my heart was not really in it and I was telling myself, anyway this is for God, and if these people are in error then let God have mercy upon me and rescue me from their hands, because I was staying in my brother’s Flat and I had no choice but to constantly attend the Bible study at his place and go with them to Church every Friday. Worship services here in the Middle East are held on Fridays as do the Muslims. And so that went on. But as for me, I continued with my personal reading of the Bible as I used to in the past. As time went on, things started to change. The songs they played in Church started to move me to tears. The lady Pastor went around during the Praise an...

Col 2:12  Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. The word operation was translated from the Greek:   G1753 ἐνέργεια energeia en-erg'-i-ah From G1756; efficiency (“energy”): - operation, strong, (effectual) working. This gives us an idea of what goes on in the spirit realm when a person comes to Christ. The Scripture says, we are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God... the energy... the effectual working of God.  Here is what happens in the spirit realm, believers are risen from the dead by this energy - the effectual working of God. And it is made to pass through the faith of this energy. Now, this clearly tells us that this is not Man's faith, it is God's faith.  Notice the first part of this Scripture. It says, Buried with Him in baptism. This is where Man's faith is in operation. Baptism is the answer of a good conscience toward God. The a...

A message I sent to a friend who is quite inclined towards Calvinism. : ) I was recently introduced by a friend to this guy who is new here in Qatar. I invited him to church and it turned out that he was a Primitive Baptist. Primitive Baptists also adhere strongly to the doctrines of Election and Predestination and we had quite a lengthy discussion on this topic already. It is not that I don't adhere to the doctrines of election and predestination, but the differences lie in how we see the manner it was carried out. And it seems to me that the Calvinist view is that the Lord hand picks His sheep. I don't see it that way and I don't think it has Scriptural basis. I believe it is just an assumption from Scripture. How one becomes a sheep I believe is not by hand picking. It is illustrated in the verse below: Eph 1:13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed wit...

Rom 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. There are 2 kinds of faith, one is Abraham's kind of faith: Rom 4:22-24 And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. (23) Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; (24) But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; And the other one is faith which is the gift of God: Rom 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. The first one is necessary for imputation of righteousness and the second one is necessary for power that overcomes the world! For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith!

2Co 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. A very simple yet so profound truth that we must not forget: we are new creations in Christ. We are not the person that we were before we came to know Christ. We are a new person, a new creature in Christ. This is very foundational and very, very important. Many Christians tend to dwell on the Cross. They stay there and never want to be removed from there because the Cross meant the forgiveness of sins. And that is true. But the very purpose of the Cross was not the forgiveness of sins, but rather, to condemn sin. A Christian is not a sinner saved by grace as some denominations teach. And that phrase, sinner saved by grace, is never really found in the Bible. A Christian is not a sinner. We were sinners before we became Christians, but when we became Christians, we put on the new man. Religion would tell you that you are not worthy, how that you are ...

By looking at Creation from a bird's eye view, perhaps we can have a hint and understand better the work which God has created. In the beginning God said, Let us make man according to our image. (Gen 1:27) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And throughout the Bible, looking from a macro level, we can see that the purpose of God for man was not changed. God has it in His heart to make us like Him. And the things that has happened in the past and those that are happening now and will still happen in the future all add up to that end. But we cannot really say that God has authored everything that takes place because even right now, we know we are free to do whatever we want, and we know that we do it by ourselves only and not by some controlling force from the outside. We can be persuaded and moved by some external forces, but still the decision to act is solely attributed to the individual. God has foreknowle...

There was this woman who felt she was really called by the Lord for the ministry. And the more she thought about it, the conviction just grew all the more. And so she started inviting friends to her place for bar-b-que and a little bit of the Word. She did that for several times and eventually it became a Bible study group. Most of the people that were invited never bothered to come back, but a number of them did stay on. And so as they continue to invite other friends, the group began to grow, until one day, this woman realized they were already big enough to start a church. And so they did. There were a couple of guys who could sing and play music and so they led the worship while the woman took on the pulpit. People came and people were blessed. People turned to the Lord, and lives were changed! People were baptized with water and with the Spirit, people got born again! The ministry was now fully established. Then certain men came and said, Ha! This church is certainly pollu...