Stefan Misaras blog, from the life of a God-man

Facebook Question: How do we prepare for the Lord's return? Can we hasten His return?

2012-01-24T18:15:00.001Z

Recently I have started asking some questions on facebook, partly because I want to know how my friends on Facebook think / feel about some things, and partly to see how much of the Word of God and the ministry gets into us and becomes part of our constitution. We read the Bible, we live a daily life under the divine dispensing, and we do our best to enjoy the Lord both personally and corporately. And from time to time, whether through people around us or in the church life, there are some of these questions being asked - how do we answer them? Here are some of the previous questions which were posted online:

And now, here's another question I asked my friends on Facebook:

HOW do we prepare for the Lord's return? He wants to return, but He's waiting for us to be prepared - how do we / you prepare for the Lord's return? How do we hasten His return?

And here are some of their answers :)

Brother, I would do my best to share the Gospel of Jesus... As much we do this, His return would be closer. Amen!
I've just read something like this, "All of our hope rests in the coming of our Lord. When He comes, all problems will be solved. Instead of focusing on problems, we can turn our eyes upon Jesus (Hebrews 12:2). He has already taken care of the problem of sin and today we can receive Him as our Saviour and as our new life. To do so, simply open your heart to the Lord and pray: “Lord Jesus Christ, I need you to solve all my problems. Thank You for dying to save me. I open to receive You as my new life. Lord Jesus, come quickly!”
The Lord is waiting for His Bride to be prepared. The Bride is a matter of love. We must love the Lord, our dear, lovely Bridegroom with all our heart, and all our mind, and all our soul and all our strength. We must tell Him a thousand times a day: Lord Jesus, I LOVE YOU! I still love You. I love You more today than yesterday and not as much as tomorrow. Lord keep me in this bridal love for You all the days of my life. When we love the Lord, His heart is duplicated in us, and we long and yearn for His coming, and our entire life becomes geared toward this. Eventually, we become the Shulamite and then the Bridegroom will return! (Also, check out hymn 1159.)
A very good question, brother. Our sister answered for us already: the preparing is our living. We are preparing for His return through many experiences, just as the bride prepares for her wedding day. The garment must be readied, stitch by stitch beautified. But likewise, we need to ourselves be matured, for the Lord will come back to a bride who is "ready." If we are immature, the Lord cannot come back. The practical way, as our sister wrote well, is to have a loving and turning heart toward Him, to seek after His heart continually and to even live unto His appearing. This means a continual kind of living, allowing His heart to be our heart, and allowing Him to work in the inward and outward ways to make us more ready. This also would involve our personal prayer for this regard: "Lord, make me ready."
preaching the Gospel to all the nations....
We prepare and hasten the Lord's return by lovingly being in the enjoyment of the Lord continually.
We need to love Him and do things not for Him but with Him and through Him by telling to others about the One we love (Rev. 22:17 note 2) preaching the gospel requires also shepherding for His corporate expresion because He desires marry not a little girl but a Bride which will match Him.
The 2 greatest prophecy in the Bible are in Matthew 16:18 which says "...I will build My Church, and Rev. 22:7...."behold I come quickly.." Untill the Church is built, the Lord will still tarry. The church is built directly by the Head Christ and indirectly thru the members of His Body. We are the members of His Body, and for us to build the Church as the Kingdom of God, the gates of hades must be shut. Three main gates of hades frustrating the building are: the self, the soul life and the mind. And if we shut these three gates by taking up the keys of denying the self, taking up the cross, and losing the soul life through exercising to always turn to the spirit, the church will be built and the coming of the Lord will be hastened
Amen dear saints! Matthew 28:19-20
That's right, we really don't know yet, because we need to depend on Him for He is the One who will make the way and make the preparation on His returned. We don't have the power to make our own plan for His coming back but He has! Praise Him...

It is so wonderful to have such friends on Facebook! We can pursue the Lord, remind one another about His Word and His life, speak His word and open up to Him, share songs and hymns, and even ask questions that remind us to turn to Him - even on Facebook! How Wonderful!

The Lord's desire is to return soon. When? We don't know - but He says, I am coming soon! Therefore, we need to be those faithful slaves who are giving food to others at the appointed time and manage things in God's house in faithfulness (while preparing for His return in the long-run) and at the same time we need to be the virgins who gain oil in their lamps, eagerly awaiting the return of their Bridegroom to enter with Him at the feast (see Matt. 25). ...

This is NOT a comprehensive and all-inclusive answer, but the answers given by the above listing is quite good. What do YOU think? How can we prepare ourselves for the Lord's return? How can we hasten His coming? Leave a comment below...

Lord, prepare us! Lord, grow in us! Lord, gain us! Make us the overcomers You need that will bring You back! O, Lord, how we long to see You again and even hasten Your return! We give ourselves to You, dear Lord, that we may be prepared!

the need for spiritual understanding and divine revelation (LS 1 Thes msg 3)

2012-01-04T23:15:00.001Z

Message three from the life-study of 1 Thessalonians is so rich and so exposing! In the first few verses of 1 Thessalonians Paul speaks of the church in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ, the work of faith, the labor of love, the endurance of hope, the manner of life, turning to God from idols, serving a living and true God, awaiting the coming of the Lord Jesus, etc. If you speak English, you understand what these words mean, but we don't really get the deeper meaning of these matters.

I was so exposed to see that I read the Word of God and I think I understand it, but I don't have an exercised heart, spirit, and mind to see the divine revelation in the Word. I take the Word of the Lord for granted. I can even declare, Praise the Lord, I have turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God! - but what does it really mean that God is living and true? Is God living to me? Is my God living to others through me? Am I in God and is God living in me? Is He real, living, and true to me and through me?

O, Lord... how much we need a spiritual understanding of the divine facts - we need to be enlightened by the Lord every time we read the Bible, so that in the organic union with the Lord the divine facts in the Word would be transmitted into us! We need to have a spiritual understanding of the Word of God (in contrast with the natural understanding of what the Bible says) and the divine revelation in the Word (in contrast with our self-made light according to our natural mind when we read the Bible).

Lord, save us from thinking we know! We don't want to take Your word for granted! Keep us so open to You whenever we come to the Word! May the objective faith be transmitted into us to become our living and subjective faith, by which we are organically united with You! Lord, we want to have a view of what You are, what You have, what You have accomplished and obtained! Save us from our natural ways... we want Spiritual understanding and Divine Revelation!

[NB. There may be a few days ahead in which I may not post here from my enjoyment in the life-study of 1 Thessalonians - but I still do my best to read it, enjoy it, and maybe even share a bit about it. Tomorrow we start the video-training on the Crystallization-Study of the Psalms(part 2), and I will focus on getting these messages in... Lord, re-constitution!]

the Characteristics of the Christian life (Life-Study of 1 Thessalonians msg 2)

2012-01-03T23:58:00.001Z

I read the life-study for today, message 2 of the Life-Study of 1 Thessalonians, and I was simply blown away! Wow, I never ever thought even in my highest appreciation for the Christian life that these three characteristics of the Christian life - turning to God from idols, serving a living and true God, and awaiting the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ - are SO RICH in meaning, sense, application, and experience! I am still amazed at what the ministry of the age has dug out in the Bible, pointing to us the obvious - it's there, in black and white letters, we just need to put some effort into "digging it out"!

O, Lord Jesus.... I need You, Lord, in the reading of the life-study of 1 Thessalonians! Especially as the video training on the Crystallization-Study of the Psalms(part two) is coming up this week, Lord, I need You so much! I give You my time, Lord! How to redeem the time in such a way that I don't get into TOO MUCH and get too little, neither do I get into only some portions and not be serious on the schedule? O, Lord...

Three Characteristics of the Christian life

1. Turning to God from idols - not just turning to God from sins, but from idols! Everyone worships something / someone, even if they are self-proclaimed atheists (who mostly worship themselves). God created us with a spiritual stomach to contain the Triune God - and when we hear the word of the gospel, we are filled with appreciation for Him and drop any other idols to be joined to Him in an organic union! This is the "work of faith", which joins us to God and strengthens us to drop our idols (who can be anything or anyone that replaces God in our life).

2. Serving a living and true God - our God is living, and He can be seen as the living God by our living today! He is living now in us, and we love Him - in love, we allow Him to live and be expressed in us. He corrects us, guides us, instructs us, speaks to us, fellowships with us, and lets us know how He feels about every aspect of our living. I was touched by this paragraph, "What about your God? Is He a living God to you? The proper Christian life should bear a testimony that God is living. The reason we do not do or say certain things should be that God is living in us".

3. Waiting for the Son of God - we have a hope, the endurance of hope, which is the return of the Lord Jesus that we may meet Him! We don't live an aimless Christian life, and we are not rooted or grounded in this earth. Our hope is not in the earthly things, in positions, careers, etc, but in the coming of our Lord Jesus! The Lord Jesus is our hope, our future, and our destination!

... wow, you need to read this message! This genuine Christian life is for the church life, so that God would get what He desires, the Body of Christ to express Him on the earth in a corporate way! O, Lord, gain the Body of Christ!

corporate 30-day challenge, one life-study message per day, 1 Thessalonians

2012-01-02T21:14:00.000Z

It is so wonderful to set goals! Sometimes last year I did this 30-day challenge - One meaningful Thing I did Today - and it was a very good experience. Since then I've been thinking concerning "the next challenge", whether I should take one or how to go on in this... I am so glad now that there's a solid burden for all the young adults to get into the truth in a solid way, reading not only the Bible portions for the day but also getting into the life-study messages in a consistent way! Via Living To Him "the life-study reading program" has started today! So here am I with another challenge, this time a corporate one :)

Corporate 30-day Challenge - One Life-Study Message per day, LS 1 Thessalonians!

On Living To Him they are daily posting the reminder with the outline and a link to where you can read the message, so the one for today is, Msg. 1, Life Study of First Thessalonians. The way I want to kind of do this is not only read the message and enjoy it, together with the Scripture reading and the notes (if possible), but also have at least 1-2 paragraphs of sharing (either in my own words or as a quote from the book). And since they are posting daily there, maybe I can post my enjoyment both here on the blog and as a comment on the blog post at LivingToHim.

Message 1 of the Life-Study of First Thessalonians - enjoyment

I am so encouraged to do this reading together with all the saints :) As those learning to take responsibility in the church life and making the Lord's recovery "our Lord's recovery", we firstly need to be constituted with the truth! Here's my portion of enjoyment from the reading today:

Praise the Lord - we are the church IN God the Father - we are organically united with Him! God is not merely our Creator but our Father, and we are His many sons. Also, it is so precious to call on the name of the Lord - O, Lord Jesus! Not just, I love You Jesus, but I love You Lord Jesus! In our experience we have a relationship with the Lord and we love Him - we love to call on His name!
I was particularly impressed with the meaning of the work of faith (our work is our faith; the strength with which we work and the nature of our work are both faith), the labor of love (deeper and harder than work, our shepherding becomes a labor - in and out of love), and endurance of hope (hope is the source of endurance, and endurance involves suffering)! This is the structure of our Christian life.

Lord, what about this additional reading? O, Lord, the next 30 days and, why not, the rest of the year! Fill my days with the Word and with the ministry! Lord, hunger for the Word! Lord, understanding of the Word so that there would be a solid deposit of the truth in my being! O, Lord...

The Picture for Today :) - Wood Green, London Underground

Pretty self-explanatory, the above picture was taken at the Wood Green tube station in London. I checked outside the station, there's lots of green stuff (a bit more up the hill there are lots of parks, green grass, etc) - just in case you were wondering whether the name is linked to the place.

no one drinks lukewarm tea! Even God hates lukewarm-ness!

2011-12-19T22:18:00.000Z

There is a verse in Revelation 3:16 that is quite bothering when you really think about it - if we are lukewarm, though we may love the Lord and be in the proper church life, we may be spewed out of the Lord's mouth! I was recently pondering about it - what does it mean to be lukewarm? Am I lukewarm? If I am, how can I be HOT towards the Lord (loving Him with the best love) and COLD towards the world (not loving the many shiny and attractive things the world offers)?

If you drink tea, you drink it either HOT (especially in the UK and in Russia) or COLD (see, Iced Tea). Hot tea on a cold day is just lovely - it warms you up and revives you (though it may burn your tongue if you're not careful). In the UK the tea break is allowed several times a day - it's Britain, right? So you can drink as much tea as you want, as long as you do your job. There used to be a tea break at Tea Time, 5.00pm, but I don't think people here keep that anymore. On the other hand, COLD tea, "ice tea" is drank cold and is quite refreshing especially on hot summer days. But no one likes to drink warm or lukewarm tea! No one loves lukewarm soups, teas, porridge, cereals, or anything else to be drank / eaten...

It is the same with the Lord - He is OK with us being HOT for Him (or hot for the world) or COLD towards Him (or toward the world), but He is NOT OK with us being lukewarm - being in a situation of compromise, in a mix-up situation, where we try to serve both God and the world. You may see something of Christ in the Word and the Lord may shine on you about certain things you need to deal with so that He would go on in you - but you "procrastinate" by not cooperating with the Lord, and things "pile up" in the background... Maybe you want to be like Switzerland - neutral, not taking absolute side to either God and His economy or the world. Maybe you are in the Lord's recovery but you are not fully and absolutely in the Lord's recovery - you still like to shop around, look around, and you still indulge in the things that your friends and your colleagues do...

In Ezek. 47 the Lord says that He cannot heal the marsh / the swamp - the water flowing from the house of God can heal the sea and brings life wherever it flows, but it cannot heal the marsh or the swamp. The Lord is faithful to shine on us, to draw our heart, to show us how much He loves us, to unveil us to see His purpose and His heart's desire, even to bring us into His recovery that we may see His ultimate move. We see that the time is ready - the Lord is preparing the last details for His return, and all He needs is a prepared Bride, those who love Him with their first love... but we may still just stand on the side, not be fully absolute, just "being around" in the church life or in Christian meetings....

Truth be told, if you are not absolute for the Lord and His economy, there are many things lurking in the darkness of our being which are operating secretly, transforming our heart into something that is slippery, something that "swallows everything" and there's nothing of life there... We may know many things, we may even teach others - but if our heart is not on fire for the Lord and cold towards the world and Satan, then we not only do not impart life but we are like "a black hole", having no content or life but sucking the life out of others.... ewww - sorry for the graphical illustration, but I am getting to see and realize more and more that if I don't lay my hands on the wonderful Absolute Christ to take Him as my burnt offering and as the Absolute one for God, there's lots of "slippery things" and marshy situations going on...

That's why we need to Come into the Light and Dig Away! Dig away any stones, any hidden things, any sins that no one knows about, any passions and other loves we develop while not being absolute for the Lord... In the Lord's shining, with a repenting heart, we really see who we are; the light exposes us and, if we cooperate with the light, it also brings life into us. I don't want to be lukewarm, even in a world that is heading towards this! "Accepting everyone the way he is", "you were born this way", and other non-sensical sayings that show clearly that No One Stands for Anything but for Himself - such a prevailing attitude among everyone today.... WHO will stand for the Lord? Who will take His way?

When Isaiah saw the Lord, he also saw himself and realized he's a sinful man living among sinful people with unclean lips... But the Lord didn't give up on him - He sent an angel to purify his lips with a burning coal... Later, when the Lord asked, Whom shall I send - who will go for us? Isaiah replied, Lord, here I am, send me! We who are sinful and with unclean lips, living among sinful people with unclean lips, can be sent by the Lord if we allow Him to shine on us, expose us, burn us, infuse us, transfuse us, reconstitute us, remake us, remodel us, fill us, and be fully expressed through us. Oh, how we want to be in this organic process of being made whole - being made a real and genuine man, a man filled with the divine life expressing God in a corporate way!

One Picture for Today - The Golden Hinde

This is the Golden Hinde, a ship on the shore, Sir Francis Drake's Famous Galleon, as seen at dusk (location: by the Thames River, London, close to Nando's :) and to the Shakespeare Globe). Visit their website for more details. [recommending a nice walk along the Thames at dusk, it's nice to see this part of London...

the bigger the lie, the more people believe it; the truth still stands!

2011-12-13T23:48:00.000Z

I have been thinking about this matter these past few months, especially when interacting and talking to the people around me. I realized one thing, looking at the history of the church until today - Satan has changed his strategy against the Lord and the church from persecuting the Christians (in the first two centuries) to welcoming Christianity (and then mixing all the pagan and idolatrous things with the things in the Bible); from covering the Bible (the Dark Ages) to allowing people to read the Bible yet add their own flavor to it (thus creating division, many distractions, and "a Christian church supermarket" where people choose the church that fits their taste); and from allowing man to read the Bible to ridiculing and making fun of what the Bible is and stands for...

Still more, because of discrediting and ridiculing the Christians and the church, people today especially in the Western Europe prefer NOT to believe in God but rather believe an outright lie instead of accepting the simple truth! All throughout the ages the truth in the Bible stood strong, and today it is shining forth with more light in the local churches everywhere on the globe. But people prefer to believe a lie, something that would fit their taste, even though the lie is great, absurd, and even colossal.

The influence of Hollywood and the movies on people is clearly seen in many believing all kinds of crazy things like: re-incarnation, no sin - no punishment for sin, ignoring God meaning there's no God, elevating the self to the extent of believing in your self and not in God, accepting all kinds of strange eastern practices and religions as being something to try, etc. I can even go so far as to say that people would rather believe in movies like Star Wars and Star Trek than believe in God - even though, starting from when these movies came out until now, everyone knows such things don't exist. The movies and TV shows today expose man's thirst for supernatural, fantastic, surreal, and as far from the reality as possible.

The truth as it is presented in the Bible and as it stands throughout the ages is so simple, so pure, so un-complicated, and when man hears the truth - there's an Amen - that's right! in his being! When people hear that God created man in His own image and likeness so that man may be God's expression in a corporate way - man is satisfied and filled with purpose! When we hear that God became a man in the person of the Lord Jesus and then as the Spirit He wants to come into our spirit to mingle Himself with our whole being and make us even the same as He is - our reaction is, Wow, amen, that's it! It is so good to know the truth and be simple - touch God in our spirit, be filled with Him daily, and express Him in a normal way!

No matter what others say about the Bible, about the Word of God, and no matter how many books people put out as being "best seller" and "best selling book of all times" - the truth in the Bible still stands! The truth in the Bible, being the Word of God, stands throughout the ages - in the beginning was the Word (John 1:1) and when the Lord Jesus will return He will be called the Word of God. Actually, it is the Word of God spoken by Christ as the Overcoming One together with His overcomers that will destroy the enemy. Today it is "man's day", it is "the day of the ruler of this world" - but in us who enjoy the Word of God and are simple to contact Him in a living way, this one has nothing!

But I have noticed that in these last days as soon as you don't touch the Lord in a living way in His Word, it is so easy to just go along with the flow in the world, become like the rest of all the people, even to believe in an outright lie, and then live a life without a purpose... It is almost as if in the age of the degradation of the church the attack and degradation has been intensified, so that you can't even stand by yourself - there needs to be an intensification of God's organic salvation to produce some who would be overcomers, some who would stand against the current of the age and just be simple enjoying the Lord!

What a mercy, how relieving, enlivening, and meaningful it is to be simple! Accepting the truth and having a living relationship with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ in a daily and habitual way - this really makes you feel you are one with the Lord, you fulfill the purpose of your life, and you are satisfied simply because God is satisfied! ... I just can't believe that the bigger the lie, the more people are prone not only to believe it but stick to it and uphold it and speak it! It is indeed the Lord's mercy that we would be simple, we would know our God, and we would allow the Lord to save us in His life much more today - so that He in us would become the overcoming One! Lord, do it in us!

One Picture in London - Tesco "You Shop, We Drop"

In London and everywhere in the big cities in the UK you see these trucks from Tesco - "you shop, we drop", meaning not that they drop your stuff on the floor but that they deliver! It's free delivery many times, and you can set what time you want it delivered! Pretty cool... :)

[What do YOU think? Does the truth in the Bible sanctify you to such an extent that the lie in the world - even the lie which is the world - is exposed? What is YOUR experience in this regard?]

Me and the Lord Jesus on Facebook. Using Twitter one with Christ. Social networking, the Lord Jesus, and me

2011-11-30T09:38:00.001Z

What does God have to do with the social networks? What does Jesus have to do with Facebook? Can you actually have God seen or expressed on twitter? In the world of free expression of everything that's going through your head, everything you see, everything you want to do, all your emotions, the things around you, etc - can you actually say something meaningful about the Lord Jesus? Can you find Jesus on twitter? Do you see Christ on facebook? Is the word of God on Google+? - these questions many Christians face and deal with in one way or another, mostly ignoring the Lord when it comes to social networking...

It's free to use the social networks, and this also means that you can literally say whatever you want, you can post pictures and videos and other media items - freely! The social networks allow you not only to connect with people you know, but with people you never met nor will ever meet, with all kinds of superstars and dignitaries, famous people or infamous persons, and you can "become best friends" with people you have no idea how they look like, what do they really do, what's their personality like, etc. Many times I am asked - probably TOO many times I am asked, Stefan, do you really know EACH and EVERY ONE of your over 2.8K friends on Facebook? Do you know each one of your over 1K followers on twitter? I stopped trying to answer this kind of questions, even though for a while people would start naming my friends and asking me "how did you meet them? Who are they?"

But what about expressing Christ on Facebook? How about speaking the Word of God on twitter? What if we +1 the articles and websites with spiritual and nourishing food? How is our being on the social networks - do we use these intensely personal and private websites (which happens in public...) together with the Lord? Have we ever asked the Lord to be with us as we browsed our friends' pictures on Facebook? Have we ever prayed for our followers or the ones we follow and chat with on twitter? Did we ever ask the Lord's advice and feeling as we use the social networks? Or do we just post how we feel ("I'm bored", "what is everyone doing - I'm dead bored", etc - the most popular status updates), what we think about (cool quotes from famous rappers, movies, world renown philosophers, inspirational quotes, etc), or where we're going / what we're doing... ?

No, we don't have to be super-spiritual while using Facebook or twitter, we can and should write things we are interested in, but what if we share with the ones we're friends with / the ones we follow something of our enjoyment of the Lord? Have you ever felt responsible for your friends on facebook? Has it ever crossed your mind that you owe the gospel to each and every friend you have on facebook? You may be among max. 100 people in school, but the average number of friends one has on facebook these days is close to 500, and on twitter is rising up to 100-200... We as Christians - no matter how we feel, what we had for breakfast, or what we are thinking of right now - owe all the people we interact with THE GOSPEL!

And the gospel is simply the Word of God! If we enjoy something in the Word, why not share a verse on Facebook as a status update? If we enjoyed a song or a hymn chorus, why not share it either on twitter, on facebook, in a facebook group or on a facebook page, on our google + stream, or even as our Skype status! All these means of communication and interacting are just helping us express how we really feel - we love the Lord Jesus! "I don't care now how I feel / I just know that this is real / And I know - O, Jesus, You're alive" in me! This is the reality! The Lord Jesus is living again IN ME, in YOU, wherever you are!

Are you on facebook? The Lord Jesus is right there with you on facebook. Are you tweeting away all kinds of random things going through your mind or some feelings you wish you had? The Lord Jesus is inside of you as you punch in the keys or gently touch the touch-screen keyboard of your smartphone! Our being on the social networks with our friends is so that we would bring our friends to the Lord, pray for them, and then "give them food"! We have the food - we have Jesus Christ as the tree of life, we eat Him every day, He is our constitution, and... we can minister food to others! A Tweet like, O Lord Jesus, I love You! - so real, so genuine, coming out of your inner being, is so much better and more helpful than your opinion on the recent football game!

... the question still remains. Am I one with the Lord Jesus as I am using Facebook? Do I express the Lord as I tweet, check into foursquare, +1 things away, or share links on the social networks I'm active on? ...

Photo From London :) Priceless Shoes store

[one of the many shops called, priceless shoes, with less expensive shoes, scattered all around the UK :) ]

[what do YOU think? What is Your experience related to using the social networks and also touching the Lord as we post stuff there? Did you touch the Lord in this aspect as you were "networking"? Share your experience / opinion below...]

does God hate us? Does He want bad things to happen to us? Questions answered in the Bible

2011-11-27T20:23:00.001Z

We love the Word of God, the Bible - if we have questions related anything in the human life, church life, family life, etc - we can come to the Word of God! Many times our question does not need a "full and comprehensive theological and reasonable answer" - most of our questions are answered by a simple and sweet touch with the Lord! Before you get the answer, you get the ANSWER! Before you get the answer, you can get the Lord Jesus, and He is the answer! If somehow our question would be turned into a seeking the Lord and touching Him, we will get the real answer!

These days I'm going through the Bible in my regular Bible reading, and I realized how many questions are answered by just reading the Bible with an open heart and an open spirit! Here's the question many people in the unbelief of their heart and the doubts of their mind ask,

Does God hate us? Does God want bad things to happen to us?

Of course, this question is a lie from the enemy, whose sole job is to accuse God, accuse our brethren, accuse us - he just lies, speaks lies, is the father of it, and nothing he speaks is true! And when it comes to this question, as I was reading Genesis chapter 4 I realized it:

God Does NOT hate us! God Loves us, and He wants to Fellowship with us!

We all know the story of Abel and Cain, and we all want to be an Abel - not in the sense of being the one who is unrighteously and hatefully killed by his brother, but in the sense that we want to be "the good guy"... But what I was shocked with in this story is that it doesn't say that God ever spoke to Abel but He did speak a lot to Cain! I mean, wow! Cain had a lot of envy and even hatred towards his brother since God was not pleased with Cain's offer but with Abel's, but still - God came to Cain, right there in that situation, to continually speak to him! God saw Cain's heart, his intentions, yet He still came to him and spoke to him!

Also, even after Cain slew his brother, God still came to Cain and spoke to him, warning him, encouraging him.... All I can say is, Wow, God loves us so much that even in our lowest point He comes to us to speak to us and be with us! No, God doesn't hate us, and NO, God doesn't want bad things to happen to us - He loves us, He wants to have fellowship with us, and He is interested in a personal relationship with us!

At the same time God is righteous, so if we break His law we will have to be disciplined, but He wants to come in, recover us, talk to us, fellowship with us, and bring us back to Himself. He's after our heart - our heart to be open to Him, turned to Him.

So if you feel like "God hates me" or "God sends all these bad things my way" - remember, the answer is God Himself in our fellowship and talk to Him! Talk to the Lord, open to Him, and enjoy His presence! He wants to talk to us! Are you seeking an answer to some very troublesome and answered questions? Open to the Lord and come to His Word! You will get the Person of the Lord when reading the Bible with an open heart!

Picture - Her Majesty's Theatre

If you follow me on instagr.am you will have seen this picture before - this is Her Majesty's Theatre in London.You can read all about it here, here, and here. One thing about theatre in general - the real scene going on right now is related to God, man, and God's enemy - Satan. I wanna be on the right team and performing the right act - I want to learn rather to exercise my spirit and enjoy the Lord than waste too much time on watching theatre.

I've been busy these days - encouraged by many Christian Students on the campus

2011-11-13T21:03:00.001Z

My apologies to all the readers of this blog, but these past few days and the next few days coming up I've been / will be very busy. Almost every night before going to bed I am thinking to update the blog, but there are some other things that recently came up. As many of you know, there are many Christian students on the campus all around the world, and here in London there's a bunch of them also :) so I've been helping with them, and there's the College Age Conference in Bower House coming up next weekend... Anyways, before getting into details, here's the picture for today - if you follow me on twitter and on instagr.am you will be up-to-date with the pictures I take and share :)

The Houses of Parliament - on the 5th of November 2011

Remember, remember, the 5th of November - on Guy Fawkes night here in the UK I went to see it with my own eyes, and it's true - the Houses of Parliament are STILL up and there was no blowing up! It's still a conspiracy ;) and V for Vendetta didn't take place. Anyways, that's a simple picture of the Houses of Parliament in London, UK, very close to Big Ben :) Read more about the Palace of Westminster, visiting the Houses of parliament, tourist information, etc.

Encouraged - the Christian Students on Campus, their testimonies

When you go to university that's when "life starts", or at least the part where you are FREE from your parents, you're on your own, and you can basically do whatever you want to do. But if you love the Lord and enjoy Him every day, even though you're free to do whatever you want to do, you still fellowship with the Lord about the little things, the big things, the invitations and words of your colleagues, the matter of having certain people as your friends, the relationships with the other students, the morality and ethics of the other students of professors... - there's so much to talk to the Lord about! And even more - you can enjoy the Lord with the other Christian students on campus! You can "flee youthful lusts and pursue" the Lord with those who call on Him out of a pure heart!

But as our experience tells us, our life is full of ups and downs, happiness and sadness, lots of failures, giving in to our friends, etc.... Also, university keeps people VERY busy, and the assignments, course study, essays, seminars, course work, etc... - so that even after classes are finished you need to stay up late at night to study... What's worse is seeing all the other students at the end of the week or at the end of the day going out, doing things, getting involved in things - and you may think, O, Lord, maybe it's OK to do this or that, or to go there with them... Or maybe you feel like, I have no time for the church life or meeting with the Christians on campus - I'm too busy with work, with the clubs I joined, the coursework, friends, etc... Well, along this line, a dear Christian student asked me this question,

How do we balance our Christian life / church life with our study life? How do we give the Lord the preeminence in all our studies?

I thought about it, and it really makes sense - is this possible? Should I take care of ONE, or the OTHER? Are they mutually exclusive? Does loving the Lord help or hinder your studies? Can I study without paying attention to the Lord, and when I finish university, I will come back to Him? - there are so many questions like these... - so I found some very good answers given by some dear Christian students on campus via, Being a Christian Student on the Campus (some of which I'm quoting below):

God, our education, and our character - We as human beings need to fulfill our duties. As students, we need to study and do our best while we can. However, we need to strike a balance between these two things. We cannot say that we only want to love the Lord and attend all the meetings but cast our studies aside. This is not right. On the other hand, we should not love education more than God. God must have the first place in our being.

Practically applying the Life-Giving Spirit to Our Lives - Recently, I’ve been learning to enjoy the Lord as the Life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). We’ve heard this many times, but so many times in my experiences I do not stand on this fact. I’ll wait until the Friday night home meeting to enjoy the Lord, or wait until some sister calls me to read the Word. But the Lord went through a marvelous process so that we can enjoy Him anywhere, anytime, and at any place. We can practically apply this through prayer – 1 Thessalonians 5:17 tell us to “unceasingly pray”.

take care of the Lord first and make a schedule! If you give the Lord one hour, He will give you two hours back. Writing an essay is not a matter of ‘quantity’ of time, it’s a matter of ‘quality’. I’ve found that once I’ve enjoyed the Lord, my mind is calm and I’m able to sit down and actually get something done! If I start an essay without touching the Lord, it’s really like untangling a big ball of spaghetti!

Love the Lord and gain Him – there is no other way! Given the insurmountable workload, the constant stress, and the many “attractions” that university life has to offer, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that we have been called out of the world and into Him – we have been called to be a lover of Christ. To this, I have many a times fallen victim. Yet, the Lord is gracious. If we only turn back to Him (by reading His word, calling on His name, and touching Him in our spirit), He is faithful to be our daily moment-by-moment supply.

seeing our studying in the light of God’s economy - In Matthew 6:24 the Lord says “You cannot serve God and mammon.” Mammon is usually associated with wealth and riches, but as students our “mammon” can become our education. We know that all things work together for good to those who love God and live according to His purpose (Rom. 8:29). Therefore we should not be anxious but diligent to study and not neglect our love of the Lord Jesus.

enjoying the Lord and testifying Him! Throughout the years there have been many difficult situations both in university and in my personal life, but the Lord has been shepherding me to turn to Him, to just take Him as my All, my Person, the living One in my spirit. Through Christ in us we have access to the Father, and in Christ we lack nothing! He doesn’t “dispense virtues” to us – He dispenses His very Person into us and this wonderful One solves all the problems! My top enjoyment from my college years is learning to turn to the Lord and leaning on Him in everything, from small things to big things – practical things and things I’m going through inwardly.

[I hope YOU enjoy these testimonies - read them in full via, Being a Christian Student on the Campus - and leave me your comment below concerning the question above. How is it for YOU as a student / working saint / parent / child? How is YOUR enjoyment and experience of the Lord and the church life?]

gifts vs ministry, big vs small, supernatural vs normal and divine

2011-11-05T23:59:00.000Z

I was thinking these days that I don't want to push it - I finished that "30-day challenge" and it worked out well, so now I don't need to blog on this site daily. I write my enjoyment of the Lord on the agodman.com website - please subscribe there to get portions of the Word emailed to you whenever they are posted. By the way, in a few weeks there will be a college age conference in the UK, in Bower House, and I have the feeling that after this conference we will have some sharing from the students of their top enjoyment in this time. First, pray for this time, that the Lord would unveil us to see the full ministry of Christ in three stages - especially in the first stage, the stage of Incarnation. Second, keep an eye on agodman.com - a God-man is a normal Christian!

The Ripley's Believe It Or Not in Piccadilly Circus, London

Apologies again for the quality of the picture - this is the building of the Ripley's, Believe it or Not, in Piccadilly Circus in London, at night. All lighted up, lots of people even after 9pm on Saturday would go into the museum... It's kind of pricy, I think, but for £25 I think they will show you the most amazing inventions and the coolest things in there. Basically, you won't believe it - Home to 700 peculiar, amazing and fun exhibits across 5 floors, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! is the London attraction sure to excite, delight and thrill the whole family. With everything you can imagine and plenty more you can’t, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! London is certainly the place to visit and definitely a day out of the ordinary!

Gifts vs Ministry; Big vs. Small; Supernatural vs Normal and Divine

This week and in the past weeks I have been considering the difference between these two types of things - on the one hand there's the supernatural, the gifts, and something big; on the other hand there's the ministry, something small, normal, and divine. People today when they think about God they think of something supernatural, and especially when they hear "the Holy Spirit" they think of some amazing and great power that falls upon man and does things... Even as believers and as genuine Christians we may have this concept that God needs to do something supernatural and something big - at least from time to time.

What's even more deeper than this is that many believers, just like the rest of the people in the world, appreciate a GIFT in the Body more than they appreciate or promote the MINISTRY. Let me define these terms, at least the way I see them in the light of the Bible. A GIFT is supposed to be something normal, according to the Psalm that says that "He led captivity captive and gave gifts to men" - here we see that each member of the Body is a gift to the Body. But in 2 Corinthians and in Ephesians we see that God gave some specific gifts to the Body of Christ, like: apostles, shepherds and teachers, evangelists, prophets. These are gifted saints who function in their measure to release their portion AND to perfect others to do what they also do.

On the other hand, MINISTRY is not something peculiar and specific that someone has, as we see today in Christianity so many "ministries" - no, Ministry is "the ministry of the new covenant" about which Paul was speaking. The ministry is produced through our enjoyment of the riches of Christ and having these riches being wrought into us through all kinds of sufferings and consuming pressures, so that we have a priceless treasure in an earthen vessel (2 Cor. 4:7). This ministry is produced in a long period of time and is different from the gift - the gift is almost "natural", in the sense that there's a human capacity filled with God's life, while the ministry is being produced in someone who may not be that capable but cooperates with the Lord.

The question is, what do we prefer / promote / desire: do we want something BIG, something SUPERNATURAL, and do we desire to be a GREAT GIFT to the Body? Or do we take the other way, keeping it small, desiring to be ministers, and living a normal and divine life? It is SO TEMPTING to take the large / big / great way - it is humanly natural to choose this. Even if someone doesn't know the Lord and an apostle speaks the word to him, he will be impressed and will say - wow, what a gift, so rich and so high! But in the church life saints may experience the Lord in a hidden and sweet way, not very outward and open, and may even pass through all kinds of sufferings that can't be explained humanly - and we think something's wrong, or maybe they need to do something to get out of this situation... - but the ministry can be produced in such ones!

I am praying that the Lord would open my eyes to see things the way HE sees things. The Lord Jesus, God living on earth as a man, did not do a BIG work - He lived and worked in a small way, in the tiny country of Israel, and did not make sure that everyone in the world heard about Him when He did something! No, He spent time with the Father, He expressed God, and when He did something He tried to tell people not to publicize it. At the same time, the Lord Jesus did something else, something most people didn't notice: He took 3 years and a half to train 11 disciples to be with Him, to be together as a group, and to love Him. That's what He did when He was on the earth, and when He died and resurrected, He had these 11 to be His continuation! He didn't train several thousand people - though He could have... but He trained 12, and one was "lost"!

The disciples followed in the Lord's footsteps - even though at the beginning of their ministry, there were some signs and wonders, some healings and some miracles, the disciples "remained small", and grew in a normal and divine way. Paul was moved by the Lord to go all the way from Israel through all Asia and even into Europe (Acts 16:9) - yet he himself also took the way of the ministry, of being produced as a minister of the new covenant. He passed through a lot of sufferings for the Body of Christ, meeting from his part what was lacking in the Body. Not it's us - "brother we", and it is so tempting to follow or swarm around or appreciate a gift, a genuine gift in the Body. But WHO will pay the price to tell the Lord,

Lord, give me the experiences I need that this ministry may be produced! Lord, I want to be a minister of the new covenant, one who ministers You into people and who cooperates with You in Your ministry today!

[ what do YOU think about this? Do you still appreciate the gifts in the Body more than desiring to be a minister? Do you see the difference between the gifted ones and the ministers? Do YOU want to be a minister, or is it better / more interesting to be around someone who has a great gift in the Body? How do YOU feel about all this? - let me know in your comments below]

have you been regenerated? I can tell this by looking at your face and by the way you respond to me!

2011-11-02T23:36:00.001Z

Regeneration is one of the most amazing things that can happen to a human being. We are born in sin, we are sinners, and we grow up in sin. But one day, the Lord regenerates us when we call on His name - and we are no longer men, but God-men! We become a God-man by simply believing into the Lord Jesus! One moment we are only a human being just like the others, and the next moment we are a God-man being, one who has God's life in him and who can be one with God! The greatest miracle in the universe is not the earth, nor love, nor anything else but this - sinners can be made sons of God, and sinful people can be made God in life and nature but not in the Godhead!

Pictures from London - Oxford Circus, in Oxford Street

Welcome to the crowded street called, Oxford street, where everyone who is young wants to go and at least do some window shopping... It's like "the west end" in London, one street with lots of shops. Usually when you go there are so many people that you have to make your way around and not be pushed and kicked. This particular picture was taken at the exit from the Oxford Circus tube station. I am still wondering if there's a way to go shopping in Oxford Street and still be one with the Lord, still be in the organic union with Him...

Have You Been Regenerated? I Can Tell It by Just Looking at Your Face and by Your Response!

Today I heard this story again and it really impressed me, so I thought I should share it the best I can on the blog...

There once was a pastor of a certain religious flavor, and he preached justification by faith to his congregation. Unfortunately, though he preached it, he himself was not saved - he was not justified. He spoke about justification by faith to the people in his congregation, but he himself was not saved. Rather, he was an opium smoker and "dealer"! How about that - both a pastor and an opium addict + smuggler! Opium is a drug, by the way, and it creates addiction ... so this pastor was not saved, was doing opium, and he was speaking about justification by faith to the ones in his congregation.

One day a sister who preached the gospel came and spoke in his church, and she was a true believer - she believed into the Lord, loved the Lord, and spoke about being saved! After speaking about regeneration and the simple way to receive the Lord, after the whole service would end, she would go to the door and shake everyone's hand, greet them, and ask them,
Have You Been Regenerated?
One day the pastor himself, as he was coming out of the church, was asked by this lady with a smile on her face, Sir, are you regenerated? He was shocked by this question and abruptly responded, Of course I'm regenerated! I'm the pastor here and I speak in this church! But then she replied, I can tell it by just looking at your face, sir, and by your response, that you are NOT regenerated! ... - this really made the pastor angry, and he went to his home thinking of many ways to cause the lady "bodily harm".

While he was at home devising a plan how to harm this sister because of her question and her exposing him, the Lord spoke to him and he realized what he was about to do. He was exposed by the Lord and fell upon his knees - he repented to the Lord with tears and invited Him in his heart.... At that time, he was regenerated! Praise the Lord! The next time when she saw him, she told him again - yes, sir, I know you are regenerated, I can see it on your face!

I may have left some details out of the story or maybe I told it a bit different, but I hope you get the gist of it. The fact that you "go to church" or even "preach in the church" may not mean that you are regenerated. Or, taking it a bit further, the fact that you're born in a Christian family, a Christian community, or a Christian country, this does not guarantee that you yourself are a Christian! For a person to be regenerated he needs to see the Lord and receive Him into his heart by repenting of his sins and calling on the name of the Lord! And then a sinner becomes a son of God - a God-man! Everyone can see it on his face - his face shines!

And going even further - we may be believers in the Lord, but many times we are not even smiling, and our face is not expressing Christ. O Lord Jesus! We need to be saved much more in His life (Rom. 5:10) now that we have been reconciled to the Lord! We need to be saved every morning! We need to be saved all the way throughout the day, in every moment! What about at lunch time - we need to be saved then too! Even before going to bed, we need to be saved continually! We need to be saved to such an extent that we fully express You in everything!

[Do YOU have an experience of being saved recently? Do you know of someone who NEEDS to be saved?]

you are what you eat - you are what you listen to!

2011-10-31T22:53:00.001Z

Not sure how is it around the world, but in the UK the fall is coming - that is, autumn is here! It's getting colder outside, the wind is blowing, the windows are not being left open during the night, the heat is on inside, the lights are turned on earlier, and we just switched to the Winter Time! Thicker clothes, a hat on the head, jacket on, an umbrella with you all the time, solid shoes, thicker socks, a scarf maybe, some even wearing gloves... Praise the Lord, the sun is still shining some days - so this brings a smile on many faces.... :)

1 Picture in London - Manor House, close to Baker Street

This is one of the many Manor Houses in London, this time in Central London. As you walk from Edgeware Rd (where district 4 of the church in London meets) towards Baker Street (where you can see Sherlock Holmes' museum, you can visit Madam Tassauds, etc) you pass by some impressive buildings like this one, Manor House. Yes, there's a tube station and several bus stops in London called by this name, but this particular building is Manor House on Marylbone Road (see it online). As I was looking on google maps - google street view, I realized that - wow, everything can be seen on google street view now, all we have to do is "add pictures" to the existing data there!

You Are what You Eat, You Are What You Listen To!

Everyone knows this saying, You are what you eat, and it is true. We eat healthy food - we have a healthy body. We eat junk food, our body will have some problems. We drink healthy drinks - mostly water - and our body has a normal and proper digestion.... But it is the same in the psychological realm - you train your mind by going to school and gaining proper knowledge in a field you're inclined towards - your mind will work as trained. You don't train your mind and you don't put it to work but let it "chill" and cram lots of knowledge into it when exams come - your mind will not work in a proper way, but will tend to prefer the relaxing...

Recently I realized also that You are What You Eat also implies that You Are What You Listen To. More and more wherever you go you see that people are "plugged in" - they listen to stuff! I personally don't want to know what they are listening to, but many people are calmer and nicer to you only after they "take their dose" / after they have been listening to something... When we're on the PC / MAC, when browsing the internet or doing our homeworks, when working or playing, etc, we like to listen to something. .... we passively listen to something and are influenced / infused by what we listen, even without knowing it!

So my thought and my consideration is like this - why not listen to some healthy things, something that gives me more encouragement and even more life? Believe me, I tried to listen to positive thinking speaches, motivational stuff, the TWIT shows(since I like internet and tech), or even the TED conference amazing discoveries and analysis... - these don't give you life, but they burden you and rather load you with all kinds of stuff... It comes down to each one of us making a choice AGAIN and AGAIN - what do stuff myself with? Do I stuff myself with "fried chicken and chips" (the favorite meal of the UK young people, very toxic when consumed in high quantities) or do I choose to have healthy food?

What comes out of us towards others and towards life in general is determined many times by what we put into us. When we listen to something, we passively allow that music / speaking / thing we listen to to get into us and infuse us with a certain "state of mind", a certain feeling... I distinctly remember some walks I took while listening to a specific thing, either a message, a speech, or some music.. And I also distinctly remember when I tried to listen to certain music and certain things - and something within me just didn't agree with that! Oh... I tried to fight with it, and I kind of won... - but eventually I love LIFE and PEACE much more than the feeling of death...

How I wish that we all would really be careful about what we listen to! We tend to become and to be influenced by what we listen to! We actually "eat" that thing we're listening, and we get an appetite for it... We need to learn to change our appetite - yes, there may have been a time we ate "fish and chips" all the time, and we drank mostly fizzy drinks - but as we grow in the human life and in the divine life, we learn to eat healthy and drink healthy, so that we may live a long life and a healthy life! I want to EAT good stuff - healthy stuff!

Examples of good stuff to listen to:

the NYC YP CD (the New York Young People CD's) - now even on iTunes and on facebook;
Hymns and Spiritual Songs - download MP3's and listen to them online;
HymnsRadio - listen ALL the day long to free hymns online...
Hymnal.net - listen to the melody of all the hymns and many new songs;
LSM Radio - listen to the whole life study of the Bible radio broadcast, everything is online as MP3's. I went through Luke, Mark, 1 Peter, etc.. - 30 mins portions, DELICIOUS and HEALTHY food!

[what do YOU think? Leave me a comment if you have a similar experience of "being bothered within when listening to stuff... DO YOU know any other websites / places where you can find good spiritual things to listen to?]

the lesson of God's sovereignty and the lesson of the cross (1 picture + 1 experience with the Lord today)

2011-10-24T23:59:00.000+01:00

And... I'm back to blogging at midnight ;) I mean, I finally found some time to do some blogging on the personal blog :) We had a school year 7-13 conference last weekend in Bower House, and praise the Lord - so many young ones attended, enjoyed the Word of God, enjoyed the activities, the food, the group time, the morning revival, the fellowship.... At the end of the conference we had the whole church in London meeting at Bower House, ending with some baptisms! Praise the Lord, Christ is Victor! He has won the victory - He defeated Satan, and He gained some young ones for His purpose! So many crossed the Red Sea to be one with the Lord!

1 Picture today - The British Library, the Entrance at Night

By now you already know that I don't post the most amazing pictures of London but the ones I take from time to time while walking about or visiting or going to some meetings with the saints... Here's a picture of the highlighted entrance of the British Library, located right between King's Cross and Euston Station. There's much to say about this place - the best way to know it is to pay a visit yourself! I went in once and there are some special exhibitions sometimes, there are collections, lots of manuscripts and other old books inside, including the old texts of the Bible, etc. Pretty cool stuff, especially if you're interested in books, reading, old manuscripts, the history, etc.

1 Experience with the Lord - the lesson of God's sovereignty and the lesson of the cross

This is just an addition and a continuation of the article I labored on in the morning - the details of Christ’s sufferings for us before He died: He was hated, reproached, mocked, betrayed. In the message for this week there's a short speaking concerning the lessons that David learned before and even after he became king. There were two specific lessons - the lesson of God's sovereignty and the lesson of the cross. First of all, when David was a young boy of 13 years old, Samuel the prophet came and anointed him as king over Israel - that was something amazing and dangerous at the same time. Amazing: wow, David, the youngest of his dad's sons, will be the king over the whole of Israel! Dangerous: there was a king over Israel already, and so when David was anointed as king, Saul (the current king) wanted to kill him!

David's story fascinated and puzzled me when I read it as a young man - if I were David and God told me + anointed me through His prophet to be king, I would "go and claim my throne!" But David waited for the Lord's time. Saul, the current king, ruled for a long time before David became king. Even more: Saul persecuted and chased David, seeking to take his life! Even though for a while Saul had David around him, made him a captain over some troops, and David was very successful for Saul, eventually Saul hunted for David all over Israel to kill him. Wow, if I would be David and the king would chase me around, I would have probably doubted God's word OR worse: I would have probably acted based on God's word and claim the throne + do what's necessary to get it!

But not David: he learned the lesson of God's sovereignty. He knew God is sovereign over everything, and He does things in His time. God's time is not our time necessarily, and He may not fulfill His promise and vision right now, when we want it. BUT He is Sovereign! If we settle this in our being, we will be at peace. All things in our environment, all the ones in our family, all the saints in the church life, the large or small number of saints around us, the people we study with or work with, the people we meet, etc - everything is sovereignly arranged by God for our good, for our perfecting, for our transformation, for God's purpose!

If we don't see and acknowledge God's sovereignty in our lives and in everything, we will struggle, we will fight to obtain what we want to / we think we should have, we will even doubt God's word and His promise... Sufferings especially and the not-so-pleasant-things that happen to us or come our way - in all these things we need to see that God is sovereign. If we see God's sovereignty, we will say AMEN to Him, and we will have hope, peace, and rest in Him

The second lesson we need to learn is the lesson of the cross. God allots us our own cross - and this is NOT the sufferings which results from our stupidity, our mistakes, or our exposure to unnecessary risk. No, there's a portion of sufferings, there's our own cross, which is allotted to us - and we need to take up our own cross with the power of resurrection. Whenever things happen, whenever suffering is here, we can exercise our spirit to bear the cross - the real application of the cross is in our spirit. It's not something outward, and it's not something "inflicted on us by others" - it's in our spirit, applied by The Spirit.

I am not there yet - as someone said, if you are fully perfected, God would rapture you... - but we are all learning these two lessons. We are learning the lesson of God's sovereignty and the lesson of the cross.

What about you - Do you have an experience of the sovereignty of God in your life or your situation? Did God show You that even in your messy and intermixed / complicated situation, He is sovereign? Would you like to share something of YOUR experience? [please do, as a comment to this article]

"writing your own copy of the law", Psalm 68, YOUR Bible (1 Picture + 1 Experience with the Lord today)

2011-10-17T23:47:00.001+01:00

The title is a bit "random", isn't it? Well, that's what happens after a whole day of rushing this and running to the gym, then a quick shower and run to the brothers meeting, and then back home to write an article... - but somehow, in all this "rush this" and "do that", there's an underlying enjoyment and peace because I can do these with the Lord! In the most craziest and busiest period of all, you can be at rest in the Lord because you inwardly turn to Him and are supplied in His Word by eating Him and drinking Him! What a mystery - living the divine history within the human history...

1 Picture Today - waiting for the bus at London Bridge at 10pm

Here I was, after the brothers mtg, waiting for the bus to come - at London Bridge. And as usual, the bus doesn't come when you want, so you need to wait for a while... London Bridge, by the way, is a huge place - the tube / underground comes there, the trains come there, and loads of buses come there. Many tourists are there, the Borough Market is right across the street, the Guy Hospital is there, the Shard is being built around there, there's loads of offices there, and... it's right by the river Thames: you can just walk on "the queen's walk" all the way to Tower Bridge....

1 Experience with the Lord Today - Writing Your Own Copy of the law, Psalm 68, YOUR Bible!

Whenever a king would be installed and start ruling over the nation of Israel, he needed to take the book of the law and make a copy of it - hand write it for himself - and keep this copy and read it his whole life. The real knowledge and wisdom comes from knowing God, and not from human wisdom or knowledge. This was in the Old Testament, in the old times.... but today, as believers in the Lord, we need to have "our own Bible", our own "copy of the law". Even more: we need to WRITE our own copy of the law! The Bible in its entirety needs to become ours - by praying over it little by little, here a little and there a little, bit by bit, verse by verse, chapter by chapter... the Word of God gets infused into us and constituted into us - it becomes ours!

This week we are in Psalm 68, and it is mainly concerning Christ as the center of God's move on the earth. Our God is a moving God - He stepped out of eternity and into time, stepping on the bridge of time, to reach us and come to us. God was incarnated and He passed through human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. In His ascension, He reached the highest point in the universe, and now Christ is at the right hand of God as both a man and God! There's a man in the glory - a God-man is on the throne over the whole universe! This One is also in our spirit - He is both at the right hand of God ruling over everything AND in our spirit today!

I want to get into this Psalm and make it mine! More practically, not just reading it (which I did at least 2-3 times by now), but also writing it! So here it is, I wrote it down here: Psalm 68 - to the choir director. Of David. A Psalm, a Song. I did not "copy and paste", neither did I adjust it... - I wrote it myself as I read it in the Bible. Try it - write the Word of God, write verses every day, and make the Word of God become Your Bible. We need to look for ways to take the Word of God into us, digest it, assimilate it, put it in front of our eyes, put it on our walls, on the door, in our notebooks, as our screensaver, as our wallpaper, as our screenlock wall paper, as our status on facebook, as our twitter update, as our profile picture... - integrate the Word of God into your life!

The above situations and places where we need to put the Word are just SOME of the many ways we can put the Word in front of us, in our hands, in our hearts, etc. If you read the Psalms you will see that the psalmists - who are loving seekers of God, just like us - loved the Word of God very much and treasured it, sought after it, mused on it, pondered about it, thought deeply over it, put it into their mind, spoke it, searched it, thought about it in the night, woke up early in the morning to get into the Word, found the word, were enlightened by the Word, ate the word, digested and assimilated the word... - the Word of God was so much to them, and they loved God so much!

So that's I wanted to do today - not just personally read this chapter, Psalm 68, and not just corporately read it together with the brothers tonight. I want to "write my own copy of the Bible", or at least this portion. There's no "copyright infringement" and there's no "Bible police" - but there's the conscience which is being purified as we get into the Word, there's the light of the Lord who can shine on us more as we have His Word in us, and there's the preservation in our being as we do things - because the Word in us speaks to us and supplies us! Praise the Lord for His living Word! We can make it OUR LIVING WORD!

three phone calls that saved me today - 1 picture + 1 experience with the Lord today

2011-10-15T23:54:00.000+01:00

The phonecalls themselves did not literally saved me, but they were means through which I got saved from myself, from my situation, and from my tiredness. It's Saturday again and after work I managed to get some rest, right after I paid a visit to the vegetables market in Archway [called, Archway Market] on my way home. I can't believe the sun was shining so bright but outside it was so cold! The days when "you can see your breath" are back, and it looks like they are here to stay for a while! Well... bring it on, fall and then winter! :)

1 Picture Today - London is full of contrasts, check out these cars!

I finally managed to take such a picture of the contrasts existing in the UK and in London in particular. There are all kinds of cars on the street, some more fancy and others more old-style. In this picture, if you look hard enough, you can see a 3-wheel old-style yellow small car, and on the other side a nice black convertible new style car. Sometimes you can see them one after another, or one by the other - one worth £500 and the other £15000. I would say that the driver in the yellow car is happier and more restful than the other guy ;) But the contrast is indeed striking many times... [I finally managed to capture it

One Experience with the Lord Today - Three Phone Calls that Saved me today

This kind of phone calls don't usually happen, but neither are they too special - I would say, they are normal, and they are a nice expression of the saints in the church life which happen to take place today. A few articles back I was sharing that it is so good to be in this lovely place, in the church life - here we can enjoy God in all His riches in the house of God. And the saints are here - Christ is in the saints! We are not just men - we are God-men, those who have the divine life within the human life and who learn to live by the divine life in the human life. As such, we have both a human history (birth, family, school, high school, university, FTT, etc) and also we have a divine and mystical history (God sanctifying us, setting us apart, sweeping in us, our regeneration, our daily growing, being renewed, experiencing Christ daily, being transformed, being conformed, etc).

The First Call - a fellow Romanian brother calls me today (just as I was resting a bit after work). He asked me for some advice regarding some practical situations, and I tried to give him some advice. Eventually, due to my lack of experience in that particular field, I had to direct him to another brother who may help him. But this was not it: as we were talking, we "slipped into" having some fellowship, and there was some dispensing of God and some ministering of Christ! It's so good to hear that God is working in other people's lives, and that He puts the ones around us on our heart that we may pray for them and serve them with Christ! Yes, even the ones at school or at work, wherever the Lord put you, are the best candidates for your prayer and your speaking of Christ!

The Second Call - a brother called me for some fellowship concerning taking care of the young people. In the church life we are not passive; rather, the Lord shows us the existing needs and, according to the burden from the Lord, we cooperate with Him to take care of the need in a coordinated way. How do we take care of the young people? Is it organization? Is it a special group of people who does this? Or iIs it by having young people's meetings? Or is it by learning to take a personal care and a personal interest in one or two young ones? The conclusion of the call was that we are learning what's the best way to both take personal care of the young ones and how to have the meetings with the young people. Amen, we're learning!

The Third Call - is a call I got from a child, who eventually turns out to be the son of a brother in the church life who wanted to call his daddy (who is called Stephen, incidentally) and he misspelled his name on the phone - so he called me! I was startled at first to hear a child's voice on the other and, but I quickly realized it must be one of the kids of the saints... - eventually, I talked to the mom, and it was a pleasant conversation. You know what, even when you take a call that is not for you, that is, when the other person may have made a mistake in dialling, you can still minister life and receive life! I was so much enlivened and encouraged when I got this third call :) A simple call, the wrong person called, yet some flowing of God's life taking place! How about that!

The moral of the story - is not to point out how interesting life can be, but to thank the Lord in appreciation for the church life. Sometimes you're tired; other times you don't have time; still, other times, you can't be bothered to call the saints, or you forget to call the saints. In these times you need the supply of the Body, and you can be saved by the other members simply contacting you... Guess what, if you cultivate a relationship with the Lord and you pursue Him with the saints, the Lord Himself will call you through different members of His Body just to remind you about Himself, and there's some life ministered into you in these calls.... It is so good to "sow unto life" by enjoying the Lord and endeavouring to be in the church life.... - the Lord will then visit you just when you need it, when the time comes...

Today I realized again that I need the Body of Christ - I need the function of the other members of the Body. It's so good to be connected and be dependent o the other members. It's really "to me - for you", and "my going on is for you - your going on is for me". As members in the Body of Christ, we are NOT separate entities - we are an organic Body for Christ to move, be expressed, and be glorified through! I am so grateful to the Lord for the saints - all ages, all languages, all nationalities, from any country, in each one's measure, with their portion in the Body.... Lord, keep us here, connected and built up together as Your Body!

Glorious freedom, wonderful freedom! No more in chains do I repine... (1 picture + 1 experience with the Lord today)

2011-10-14T23:50:00.000+01:00

Tonight is one of those very rare nights when I got home after the home meeting BEFORE 11.30pm! This is very rare indeed, since most times the home meeting goes on and we enjoy the Lord and being together up until close to midnight! Since most saints don't work the next day, most young people have no school on Saturday, and most students have no classes next morning, everyone chills and enjoys. And indeed, even tonight, what an enjoyment and what a good fellowship we had! To see how Psalm 51 is being applied today and how we as believers in the Lord can repent and confess our sins... It's one thing when you read about it in the Bible, and it's a totally different thing when you hear this from 13-year olds, 15-year olds, or even 18-year olds... Wow...

1 Picture for today - Even the Police needs AA

This picture was taken recently as I was walking home one night - it looks like even the police needs AA, that is, it needs to be towed away. I'm not sure whether they parked illegally ;) or maybe their engine just died - whatever happened, there were 2-3 policemen there and a car who took the police car away. Pretty cool, and also pretty mysterious... [I'll leave it like that!]

1 Experience with the Lord today - Glorious Freedom, wonderful Freedom, no more in chains do I repine!

This line is taken from a hymn we love so much, where the chorus says, Glorious Freedom, / Wonderful Freedom, / No more in chains of sins I repine. / Jesus the glorious Emancipator / Now and forever He shall be mine! This song mainly refers to the freedom which we get by believing into the Lord. He delivers us from Satan, from ourselves, from any bondage, from pride, sinful ambition, evil temper, anger, love of money, envy, strife, carnal affections, hatred, vain ambitions, worldly desires, fear and its torments, care and its pain, etc. Basically, once we come to the Lord, we are being set free!

We may say like the Jews in the Lord's time, But we are slaves of no one: God is our Father (John 8:33)! Well, I can tell you right now, we are being daily enslaved and oppressed. Especially when you get into a debt of money to someone or to the bank, you get enslaved. Also, there's all kinds of chores and regular things we owe to do towards others. Sometimes we make mistakes - for which we need to pay either with our time or with something else. All these things put a burden on us, they enslave us. We need to work in order to support ourselves, to sustain a certain life-style - this can enslave us.

And then there's the ambition and the desire to get something or be someone. There's the pride which rises up in us and we cultivate by going to schools, having achievements, accomplishing what we set out to do, getting some degrees, being praised by others because of some attainments we have or any other thing about us, etc. If there's not a career thing, then the cares of this age, the cares for this life, our family needs, the people we need to care for... the things at work, the people around us, etc - it's almost as if everything around us was designed by someone to occupy our time, take our time away from us, ensare us, enslave us, and bring us into bondage. We say we are free, but we are under much burden and in bondage to many things...

What about the entertainment and the media today? What about the new shiny and amazing gadgets? The new games, the new apps, the new music, the new movies, the new this or that.... The news, the pictures, the things happening - all these are "our food" so many times, and at the same time they are enslaving us, causing us to desire after them and not be happy until we get more.... There are things OUTSIDE of us that work together to wear us out and enslave us, and there are many things / thoughts / feelings WITHIN us that cause us to be burdened and enslaved....

BUT there's a GLORIOUS FREEDOM that we can experience! This freedom is not only initially when we touch the Lord, but it can be experienced and it SHOULD be experienced by all the believers in Christ every day! We can turn to the Lord - we can just open up to Him! He came that we may be free indeed - and in His word we are being delivered. We need to read His Word, enjoy Him in the Bible, and allow the Word of God to deliver us. There's a freeing-from-bondage effect in our praying over the Word of God and in spending time with the Lord personally. The other things are still there, all around us, waiting for us - but we take time to spend with the Lord... and we are INWARDLY FREED!

I think that this is our experience every day - maybe not the above mentioned items, but for each one of us there are some things, some matters, some situations, that enslave us, put us down, and we have to "take care of them" and be under them. And you know what? God doesn't want us to escape those things necessarily - He wants us that right there, in these things and in these situations, we would open to Him. We need to turn to the Lord and take Him in as the fresh breath of spiritual air. Pray over His Word - with your heart being turned to the Lord, and You Will Be Freed! We can and we should experience the glorious freedom TODAY and EVERY DAY!

what can I do to show my love for the Lord? (1 picture + 1 experience with the Lord)

2011-10-12T23:48:00.001+01:00

The 30-day challenge is kind of phasing out, and more of a burden is coming in. There are days when it's simply not practical to write something on the blog because you are either too tired to do it or maybe you're too late in meetings with the saints, shepherding the new ones, or taking care of practical matters. It's not a "law" and I don't want to make it to be "do it every day or else...". I want to learn how to do things in life. Enjoy Christ as life, live Christ, and even while blogging - learn to enjoy Christ and express Him in the way of life! So today's portion is about a simple question... before that, here's,

1 Picture for today - Fish and Chips, Britain's Beloved Food :)

Sorry for the quality of the picture, and also for maybe mis-representing Britain's most beloved junk food / fast food, Fish and Chips! The name of the place and the location doesn't matter - almost every major street in London has at least one of these "Fish & Chips" places. Together with the donner and the fried chicken places these are the most popular fast food all-day open in Britain. I love the chips, but many times I think the fish is way too expensive for my budget... :)

1 Experience with the Lord Today - What can I do to show my love for the Lord?

Have you ever asked yourself this question? Or, have you asked yourself / the Lord this question today? The Lord loved us so much that He came and gave up His own life for us. Even more, He still loves us so much that no matter where we are and what we have done, no matter the condition we are in, we can always turn to Him and repent, confess, apply His precious blood, and we enjoy life! He is always shepherding us, always taking good care of us, always and continually imparting the divine life into us, and always interceding for us. Many times we don't see how much He is to us and how many things He does for us, but when the Lord shines on us and we see, then we realize His love for us....

I grew up in a Christian family and I read many biographies of the martyrs, the early Christians, the saints who went to preach the gospel in heathen lands, those who lived and died for the Lord, and about the ones who followed the Lord even unto death. It became clear to me that these ones loved the Lord so much and this was expressed in a practical way in their living.... The Cambridge Seven for example were rich, famous, smart, very talented, and also were Stars in England in their age. But they gave up everything and left it all - they all went to foreign countries as missionaries to preach the gospel and bring others to know the Lord. Others like Hudson Taylor left England to go to China to bring the Word of God to the Chinese people - out of love for the Lord...

What about me? What about us? What about the Christians today? Do we love the Lord only with our lips? Do we just say from the tip of our tongues, Lord Jesus I Love You!? Or... what do we do to show the Lord how much we love Him? What did these ones have that we today don't have? Why did they love the Lord so much and did such things for Him in their lifetime? Well, we may say that we can't really go to those foreign countries because of this or that; or maybe we don't have a burden or commission from God to go, etc... But how many times during a day do we just stop and tell the Lord how much we love Him, and how much we want to give Him some time to spend with Him to enjoy Him?!? And in our time with Him, isn't there something that He puts on our heart to do for Him?

You know, throughout the ages, thousands of heart treasures, golden futures, and precious lives were poured out upon the Lord Jesus - because these loving believers considered Him more precious than even their own life! I don't know about you, but when I read the Bible and when I read the biographies of these dear forerunners in the faith, I ask myself and I pray to the Lord, What about me, Lord? What great work do You want me to do for You, so that I would show You my love for You? I don't want to love You just in word, but also in my action, my living, my attitude, in the way I speak, and in the way I spend my time and my money! Lord, how practical are You to me, and how much do I show that I love You? Lord, before Your second coming, before You return to receive Your Bride, Your overcomers, how can I express my love for You and all that You are + have done for me?

... I don't want to go too far with this, and I don't want to stir up anyone or anything. But it all starts with our heart, it all starts with now - right now, whenever the Lord speaks something to us or when we have a break during the day and we turn to Him: we can give Him our time and allow Him to touch us in many practical ways... There are so many ways to show our love for Him! Love always finds a way to be expressed and be shown... Reading His Word, being faithful to be in the meetings of the church every week, praying for the saints and for the church, taking care of the young ones and the new ones, cooking for the saints, inviting some saints over for dinner, ministering to the saints, having scheduled times of prayer, pursuing the Lord with our companions, going out to preach the gospel, etc... To each one of us there's a capacity / a talant entrusted, and we CANNOT put it in a handkerchief + bury it in the ground!

Those who know their God have great searchings of heart and great resolutions of heart. They know their God and take action. Yes, it starts with the small personal things like spending private & intimate time with the Lord often and regularly.... - but it continues with practical expressions and actions, even a more thorough consecration to the Lord as the days go by. We can't just stay passive, and we can't do nothing! Lord, right now, as I turn to You and I finish this article, what do You think - what can I do to show You how much I love You???

We are sinners saved through grace, praising God! (1 picture + 1 experience with the Lord) 30-day challenge

2011-10-10T23:53:00.000+01:00

Back from the ITERO, and back to work and the busy life! Wow, after such an amazing retreat where time stands still and everything is quiet, where people take their time to chat and fellowship, and where no one hurries up... - to North London where everyone rushes to work or school, buses and cars everywhere, you need to be careful not to bump into the many people on the street, even at night you hear the police and ambulance, etc. What a difference... Now I know that when we just take time to listen to the Lord, and even take some specific time away from the busy life, He can have a way to speak unhindered!

1 Picture for today - London Tube, London Underground

There are so many pictures you can take of the popular tube stations in London... - this one, I think, is in Bank Station, where many people change between the Northern Line and the Central Line. Especially when I go to Bower House, I change at Bank (especially since Tottenham Court Road tube station is closed for repairs on the Northern Line). I put this picture on Facebook and many liked it - so here it is also on the blog! :)

1 Experience with the Lord today - We are Sinners Saved Through Grace, praising God!

This morning we started getting into Psalm 51, which is a psalm of repentance - David is repenting before the Lord, admitting his sin and confessing. What a deep and what a precious psalm! I still can't wrap my head around this whole situation - how could David, someone who warred God's battles, who had a desire to build a house for God, and who was chosen by God since he was a teenager - this one, how could he fail so miserably??? The Bible simply says that he woke up in the afternoon and he went for a walk on the roof of his house, he saw a woman bathing, and... - he took her, he arranged for her husband to be killed, and then married her! This is awful, and this is not something that is recommended as a "Bible story"...

O Lord Jesus... Even when the gospel of Matthew starts, it says that David begot Solomon "out of her who had been the wife of Uriah the Hittite"(Matt. 1:6) - even in the genealogy of Jesus, this sin is like a stain there... After such a great revelation, David - a man after God's heart - failed so miserably... A man who enjoyed God so much, who wrote psalms and was on the throne, conquering the enemies and subduing the nations - this one committed such a crime that not even people in the world would commit... This even is so inexplicable that it's a shame that it happened, really...

But I praise the Lord for the ministry of the age which interprets and brings to light the spiritual principles in this story. David is just like us - we are all sinners, and we commit sin and transgressions. That's why we all sinners love this psalm - it is composed by a sinner and it is read and sung by us sinners. Only a sinner can write such a psalm - just as the famous song, Amazing Grace, was written by a sinner saved through grace, John Newton. This guy was so rebellious and so much against God that he did a lot of terrible things (which include slave trade, etc). But one day grace came and conquered even him... only a sinner can compose such a hymn and utter such words - and this is what makes our salvation beautiful!

We are just sinners saved through grace - and we will forever remember this. We may be alright today, but we may fail again tomorrow - it is God's mercy and grace we are still here. We are NOT angels - but as sinners, we can utter praise that the angels cannot! The angels don't know the joy of being forgiven and accepted by God even after failing miserably... We are forgiven much, therefore we love much. As sinners, we are made the masterpiece of God to shine out as the New Jerusalem - and even there, while shining brightly as the sun, we will still remember that it is the grace who did it all - it's not of us! Today we can offer a sweet and precious praise to God - He receives us when we return to Him and repent! All we need to do is repent and confess, and He receives us back and gives us grace!

We are not "looking for trouble", in the sense that we don't seek to sin, but as human beings things happen and we may fail, even fail terribly - to such an extent that others may shake their heads at us... O Lord Jesus... - even then, we can return to the Lord and repent. Yes, we are sinners, but we can repent and confess our sins, and He forgives us. Out of such a deep failure with a thorough repentance, married with God's forgiveness, something comes out - something for the building up of the church! What a wisdom! What an amazing plan! It's nothing of us, not of ourselves, not of our own effort or ability - but it is of God's grace! How we praise Him! How we love Him! We, sinners saved by grace, are being made the masterpiece of God!

... and this whole week it's a week on Psalm 51 - I am looking forward to pray over this Psalm, to meditate and muse on it.... May He produce the Solomon in us, the Christ who is experienced by us even in these failures, so that His house may be built! Praise the Lord!

ITERO in Holland, here we come! (1 picture + 1 experience with the Lord) 30-days challenge

2011-10-04T23:48:00.000+01:00

Wow, it is such a privilege that it is in Europe that the ITERO is hosted this time! The International Training for Elders and Responsible Ones is now on the continental Europe! The last time this feast in the Lord's recovery came to Europe was in 2003, and it was in Heckfield Place, close to Reading. But now it's in Baarloo, Holland! And somehow it looks like I'll be attending it, together with many hundreds of brothers in the UK and from Europe! I don't think I'm "an elder or a responsible one", but I want to be part of the generation who is learning by practicing...

1 Picture for Today - Glimpse of the Holloway Road Shopping Centre

Sorry to speak a lot about Holloway Rd, but that's where I kind of live and walk about... Anyways, after I went to get some shopping done for the trip to Holland I thought I should take a picture of the exit of the shopping centre... No matter how many people are flooding the place during the day, there's a time at night when NO ONE is there, and the place looks desolate. It's impossible to go shopping 24/7 - because man was not made for shopping, but man was made for God! Anyways... :) here's how the exit of the shopping centre, at the entrance of the Morrisons, looks like at night... [in case you didn't notice, the picture is a pretext or an excuse to promote and talk about the real thing, the following experience with the Lord!]

1 Experience with the Lord today - ITERO in Holland, here we come!

First of all, I thought that ITERO starts on Thursday evening, so I was mentally prepared that we would travel to Holland on Thursday morning - and I told everyone in our home meeting and at work - that I will still be working and be in town on Wednesday.... when I found out that we are actually travelling to Holland on Wednesday morning, so I can't go to work or meet with the saints for dinner on Wednesday! Boy, oh, boy.... we had to rush things, explain things, apologise to the right persons, make sure people know where things are and what needs to be done, etc... - somehow, after hours of work and sweat and coordination, it worked out! :) I need to be more "responsible" and more informed next time...

Second of all, I consider it such a privilege that the Lord allows us, the young adult brothers, to attend the ITERO and learn, together with the more experienced brothers, to serve together and coordinate together. We don't have much experience, and we are definitely not mature in our human life or spiritual life, but we want to learn just as Joshua learned by being around Moses and observing. There's so much to learn, so much to pray over, so much to experience and to fail, and so much to allow the Lord to do the work He wants to do in us! We are not qualified, and the more we are involved in practical things in the church life or in speaking for the Lord, the more we realise that "we're not the man for the job". We really need to be replaced by Christ practically, and we need to learn to coordinate together and fellowship more together...

Third of all, why am I still up at midnight writing something on the blog when I have packing to do, shirts and trousers to iron, some rest to get, and all kinds of other little things to take care of? Well, this is the question I ask myself again and again - why do I have to write here on the blog? I want to find out YOUR feeling / opinion concerning this blog, whether it is HELPFUL or whether it is TOO MUCH... - or, what do you think? Now that I'm on my way to ITERO in Holland, there may very well be 4-5 days until I find time and internet access to write on the blog - so I would really like to find out your opinion about it. Take a look at the previous articles, the previous pictures, etc - and drop me a comment here....

I don't want it to sound like this is very important - but YOUR COMMENTS may be decisive when it comes to whether I should continue doing this, writing this, in this format and on this blog. I receive a lot of likes and comments via Facebook or twitter, but I would encourage you to drop me a line below....

[I'll come back with more AFTER the ITERO, most likely, but until then I want to have YOUR comments, opinions, feelings, and suggestions. Thank you - I appreciate your feedback]

The Facebook Effect vs. The House and the City (1 picture + 1 experience with the Lord) 30-day challenge

2011-10-03T23:54:00.001+01:00

Today was one of those days in which I made it to the gym :) so when I got there, I wanted to listen to this book - actually, I wanted to continue listening to this audiobook - called, The Facebook Effect. I think the book has about 16 hours, so you listen to it little by little as you have some spare time... First of all, you can BUY the physical book, or you can buy the electronical book. Or even better: buy the audio book, which actually means that someone reads the book for you! You just listen to it and "take it in"...

1 Picture Today - Houses in North London

In North London - that's where I kind of live for the moment - there are a lot of fancy houses, a lot of old-style buildings, a lot of manor houses, and also - a lot of council houses. I happen to live in a studio that is in a building very similar to the one above. The style of the building - I don't know, Victorian, Georgian, Edwardian... ? What's for sure is that these buildings look nice especially in the sunlight... Most of such homes everywhere in London are for rent - not many people here own their homes...

1 Experience with the Lord - The Facebook Effect vs The House and the City of God

I love listening to audio books, and I wish I would find some books that are worth the time to listen to. The best book to read or to listen to - which I can recommend wholeheartedly - is the New Testament, or the whole Bible! Whatever you do, whether you're travelling or doing some housework, working out at the gym or walking - you can plug in the audiobook and listen to the Bible being read in your ears! Of course, you need to focus in this time to what you hear, but you will find it very handy to "noise out" what the world is doing and "plug in" the Word of God!

So, anyways, as I was at the gym today I tried to listen to this particular book, The Facebook Effect, but I realized again what I already knew - it's better to EAT GOOD FOOD than have junk food or "rubbish food"! I can't feed on "facebook" or "facebook effect"! I need the Word of God, I need the ministry which imparts life into me! So I "switched" the track to the message for this week, The House of God and the City of God, and oh, the light and the life that flowed! The Light was shining, and I got exposed! It's not an "effect" anymore, it's not something that uplifts your soul or gives you more mental knowledge - it's something you can drink of, something that gets you closer to the Lord whom you love, and even opens up God's heart....

God desires to have a house on the earth - and we as members of the Body of Christ need to enjoy and experience God not only individually but also corporately, even to know God as the God of the House of God! We need to be built up and built into the house of God, the church! It's here, in the church, that God is the rich fatness, there's a river of God's pleasures, and in His light we see light - the entire Triune God becomes our enjoyment in an immeasurable way in His house! The Psalmists loved God's house, and whenever we meet with the saints in the church life and we are in our spirit, we have a foretaste of what God can be to us in His house...

God today can be located - He is in Christ, and He is in Christ's enlargement, the church! The church as the house of God is where God is located today! But this is not all - God wants to have a city, a fortified and strong place, through which He can bring in His kingdom on the earth and rule over the whole earth! We are the house of God today, but we need to be brought under God's government so that we may be in reality in the kingdom of God, even the city of God, for God's dominion! After the temple / the house of God is built, there needs to be a wall around it to protect God's interests and bring in God's kingdom on the earth - we need to go on from enjoying God in the house to enjoying God in the city!

I was so exposed - here I am, kind of wondering around, not really having an aim... when God has a heart's desire to gain the house of God and the city of God! The New Testament starts not with the gospel of the house(John) but with the gospel of the Kingdom(Matthew). But today, can we see the city of God in the local churches? Am I under God's direct rule and in the reality of the kingdom? There are so many practical things in which I need to be headed up, built into the wall, to become the city of God!

God needs the city: the house of God MUST be enlarged to become the city of God! I found myself opening to the Lord as I was listening to the message and praying back to Him this heart's desire of His, even asking Him to make me one of those who knows Him and experiences Him as the God of the House of God but the God of the City of God! I want to be brought under His headship little by little in all the things and aspects of my life, my being, and my living! This is His desire, and we can pray His desire back to Him that He may do it in our life!

Lord, what about my blog here online? What about my sharing? Lord, am I in the city when I share every day something here? Lord, is my being in the kingdom? Do I forgive others when they offend me? Lord, do I have a hidden life with You? Do I serve You and love You more than I love mammon? O, Lord, am I active in my function with the talant You gave me? Lord, do I seek Your kingdom First? O, Lord... bring me and bring all the saints in the churches into the reality of the kingdom of God, the city!

... in conclusion, there's no comparison between, The Facebook Effect (what is that?!?) and a sharing from God's heart concerning His economy, The House of God and the City of God. The more I read / listen to the things that happened with facebook, how it evolved, how it got improved, the controversies around it, the people that Zuckerberg stepped on / put aside to get where he is now, the money involved, the lifestyle of the people working there, etc - the more I get distracted from the real thing going on right now! What's really going on today is God's House and God's city in the local church! This doesn't mean I won't read the book; but it means that right now, I choose God's house and God's kingdom!

finding my home in the church life, in the homes! (1 Picture + 1 Experience with the Lord) 30-day challenge

2011-10-02T22:38:00.000+01:00

Most people who know me or have met me realise this particular thing about me - and hopefully about the ones I'm hanging out with - My Home is The Church Life, the Homes of the Saints! I'm not originally from the UK, and since I've been here I noticed that, especially in Central London, there's a tendency of being independent, not getting into others' business or home, each one with his own, etc. But I have to say, my pleasure and my salvation is that my home today is the church life! Praise the Lord for the house to house church life He puts us in!

1 Picture for Today - London Underground, inside the London Tube

Since I had to travel a bit by tube these days, here's how London Underground - also called London Tube - looks these days. They have definitely improved the quality of the service, the quality of the trains, the frequency of the trains, etc. The London Underground system is pretty good and always reliable - even when there are some portions close for works and repairs, they provide free bus rides / replacement buses! But even though the 2012 Olympics are not here yet, especially at rush hours, there are way too many people on the underground... :)

1 Experience with the Lord Today - Finding my home in the church life, in the homes!

This is both my experience and my desire. Being a single brother here in London, working, busy, etc - and away from my family back in Romania - I need to find a place I can call home (before I have my own home...). Just like David says in the psalms, I want to find my home in the church, the house of God. It's not that there are so many saints that I just go from home to home, but wherever the homes are, that's where I go! And there's a price I want to cooperate with the Lord to pay so that I would be where He dwells, where He finds His home... The Lord is in our spirit today(2 Tim. 4:22), but He also dwells in the church - in the practical church life, the local church! If you're in the church, you have His presence. If you skip the meetings of the church, no matter how much you think or feel that you enjoy the Lord, there's something really rich, which is on His heart, that you're missing!

It's not that easy when you work to choose to go and meet with the saints after you finish work. Even if you meet only in 2 home meetings per week and one prayer meeting - it's a day to day decision and a continual inward prayer to be strengthened to go to the meeting... But once you are there, if you "bring your bones into the meeting", the Lord's breath of life is there, the fellowship is there, the food (both spiritual and physical) is there, and the building up is there! It's almost as if all you need to do many times is get your body to the meeting - offer up your body as a spiritual sacrifice for the church life, Rom. 12:1 - and the Lord pours out His blessing, He feeds you, nourishes you, and gives your life purpose and meaning! The church life is so rich, the saints are so excellent, and the food is so good!

And the secret is - the homes! It's not the "big meetings", the conferences, etc - it's the homes of the saints where the Lord can perfect us, can nourish us, and can meet our need. We all need to be attached to a home - the children need to grow up in a home, the young people need to have their own home meeting with all the saints, the students are properly growing and flourishing in a home, the young couples need to open their home, the older saints need to be in the homes... All the ages, at any stage in life, need to be in a home meeting which we call "our own assembly". These are "our folks", our "family", and indeed, our home. In the homes of the saints we find our home.

Mmmm... the food is so good when you have it with the saints in the homes! You may cook the exact same food - or you may order it at the restaurant and it may actually properly be cooked, but the best food, the most delicious food, is in the homes of the saints. Even if it's the spagetti or the pizza, or any other small / easy to cook food, as long as you're in the home around the table with the saints, that food is blessed! And it is in this environment that you can open up your situation, you can bring some names of your friends / classmates / workmates that you're burdened for, you can ask questions, etc... The shepherding, the perfecting, the building up, the developing of our function, and the organic gospel preaching is done all here - in the homes!

When you taste this, when you see this, when you're part of this, you will do like Psalm 45 says, forget your father's house and be in this! Yes, you can pray and work with the Lord in bringing your own family into the church life, and bring the church life into your home - but once you see the HOMES, the 80% of our church life where the granular and vital linking / building up / perfecting / shepherding takes place, YOU WILL NEVER LEAVE nor will you choose any other way! Rather, you will find your home in the church life, in the homes! And if you meet someone at school, at work, on the street - you have a home to bring him to.

One more thing - the church life and the homes are NOT perfect, but they are genuine, and it is here that the Lord's sweet presence is. Maybe you say that there are not too many homes open, or that you don't know which home to go to... - where there's a will, there's a way. If there are some saints that are in your locality, you can just attach yourself to them and visit them. "The kingdom of God is taken by force" starting with the time of John the Baptist - if you don't have a home you're in now, you'd better find one and be desperate before the Lord until He brings you to one! We all want this, and we all need this - this is the God-ordained way to meet and to serve is in the homes of the saints, in the vital groups. It starts really small, it is so organic, and the increase is slow - at the speed of life. But THIS IS IT - It's the HOMES! Praise the Lord for the homes!

intrinsic and organic - yet building up the city! (1 picture + 1 experience with the Lord) 30-day challenge

2011-10-01T22:35:00.002+01:00

Praise the Lord - this weekend we have the Teachers Training! Once a year - a few months before the Winter School of Truth - we set aside a weekend when we come together to have some fellowship concerning the burden of serving with the young people and also the material we are getting into during the Winter School of Truth.... It is an intense weekend with lots of speaking, lots of fellowship, and lots of prayer! Every year there's a particular burden on the Lord's heart, and below I'll try to share what I enjoyed today about this...

1 Picture for Today - Bower House, Havering Atte Bower, in Romford

Bower House is a mansion somewhere on the hills of Havering, where once upon a time the lord of the land used to live and enjoy life... Nowadays this place is the home of the Full Time Training in London, an accredited Bible school in the UK, where I happened to have graduated a while ago. The manor house is quite old, and it is "protected by the state" since it's part of the "national treasure" :) You have to visit this place, you will definitely enjoy both the view from the Manor House(you can see the city of Romford from there) and the fellowship with the brothers and sisters :)

1 Experience with the Lord Today - Intrinsic and Organic - Yet Building up the City!

As believers in the Lord and as ones who are burdened to serve in the church life according to our measure, we need to see and realise that our service is not outward or extrinsic. What we do today is not a work of "correcting people" or "adjusting people" - especially as we serve with the young people. It's so easy to see the faults or the expressions of the flesh - and it is very tempting to point them out and correct people. But what we do today is not something outward and it is not something on the exterior. Rather, we do an intrinsic and organic work...

The Lord Jesus is not in the business of correcting us outwardly; rather, He comes into us as our life and our everything to be our supply and fill us inwardly. He does an intrinsic work in us - by coming into our being and even becoming part of our being through constituting us with Himself! Also, He does an organic work - He doesn't correct us outwardly or adjust our behaviour from outside; rather, He does an organic work in us by working Himself into us in our spending time with Him. Yes, He does correct and adjust us, but He does so from within, as we fellowship with Him!

There are so many things that are wrong about us and there are so many negative things that come out of us, oozing out even as we live our life daily. We are a constitution of sin, and it's normal and natural for us to live in sin - to live apart from the Lord. But when the Lord comes into us, He makes us one with Him organically(1 Cor. 6:17) and He does an organic and intrinsic work in us to reconstitute us with Himself from within. As we spend time with the Lord, as we enjoy Him, as we get into the Word, He gently adjusts us, corrects us, and rebukes us... He does it from within, and the change comes from within - this is the real change!

It's the same with us when we cooperate with the Lord today - we are not in the business of correcting or adjusting people, but what we do today is an organic and an intrinsic work. We want to learn to cooperate with the Triune God that Christ may be wrought into the beings of the saints through their enjoyment of the Lord! We don't need to adjust others or correct others outwardly - rather, we need to help the saints to enjoy the Lord! When we bring the young ones and the new ones, even all the saints, to enjoy the Lord, all their problems are solved and the Lord can do an intrinsic work in them! I need to repeat this to myself and I need to see this in a fresh way - we do an intrinsic work and an organic work, not something outwardly!

Moreover, our work is not just to bring others to simply enjoy the Lord and that's it - God desires to have not just His house but also His city! Yes, it is good to have the house of God built up (see Ezra), but what about the city of God (see Nehemiah)? Who cares for the rebuilding of the walls of the city? God wants His people to be His home, and He also wants His people to be separated from the world, sanctified unto God! We need to be both God's house and God's kingdom, His city... This also is done not through outward correction - we may think that the city of God is obtained by adjustment, correction, and regulations, but the building up of the wall of the city is also an organic and intrinsic work!

For us to build up the wall of the city and become the city of God standing strong for God's testimony we need to eat Christ in His proper humanity, His perfect and balanced humanity... only Christ is qualified to protect the interests of God, and only He is the One who can build the church - therefore, we need to eat Him! Praise the Lord, we can eat Christ in His humanity - He loves man, He cares for man, He does not condemn the sinners, He does not send away the children or the infants, He spends regular time with God, He does not seek the glory which comes from man, He respects the Father... The more we read and pray read the gospels, appreciating and enjoying the Lord's perfect humanity, the more an intrinsic and organic work takes place within us.....

Praise the Lord... He's such a great God, respecting our free will, yet at the same time He makes Himself available for us to enjoy and be dispensed into others! He does an intrinsic and organic work in us - He reconstitutes us, grows in us, and supplies us to do His will... Also, God wants us to cooperate with Him in doing an intrinsic and organic work by helping the saints to enjoy the Lord! It's actually not us but the Lord doing His work in us... As we enjoy the Lord, especially as we enjoy His fine and perfect humanity, we are built up as the city of God to protect God's interest and bring in His kingdom. O, Lord... turn our eyes from anything outward to the intrinsic and organic work You are doing in us and we are doing one with You!

The gospel is always a battle, and there is much opposition! (1 picture + 1 experience with the Lord) 30-day challenge

2011-09-30T23:43:00.001+01:00

As long as you are a believer in the Lord, one who has received the divine life, you are qualified to preach the gospel. You don't have to "go to a seminary" or "be ordained" as a priest to be qualified to preach the gospel. Actually, if you are one who loves the Lord, the gospel will be your living and it normal for you to speak of your Beloved Lord Jesus, of His Word which you enjoy daily, of the things He did for you, or of your experience and enjoyment of Him daily! It is normal for a believer to speak the gospel and to tell others about the Lord!

1 picture today - a Hotel on Seven Sisters Road

This is one of the many hotels on Seven Sisters Road as you walk from Finsbury Park towards Manor House. It's a long road along which there are several such hotels and motels. Some are more fancy while others aren't. I guess that for the many people working and visiting London, especially in the Finsbury Area, towards the Arsenal stadium / the Emirates, there's the need for hotels and short term stay motels... Guess what, they are building even more of these! There are several areas in London, close to large centres like Paddington, Finsbury Park, Stratford, Liverpool Street, Notting Hill Gate, etc - where these little or medium size hotels are booming!

1 Experience with the Lord today - The Gospel is a battle, and there's much opposition!

I think that this is our experience every day - there is a struggle within us to speak about the Lord, and there's a battle outside of us when we open our mouth to speak. We love the Lord and we really want our friends and the ones around us to know the Lord, love Him, taste Him, and see how amazing He is. So we pray for our friends, and sometimes we try to speak to them... Why do we feel so "awkward" when we speak the gospel? It should be normal for us to speak about the Lord, but there's a struggle within... And then, many times the response is either not so positive or we may even be ignored...

These days I've been reading the book of Acts, and I was impressed with this matter - even in the Apostle Paul's work and ministry there was a battle when he spoke the gospel. Let's just say that he overcame "the inward struggle", since he as a Jew went all around Asia and the Gentile world announcing the gospel(which is something quite unusual)... But in city after city, as he spoke, he had a lot of people who received the Lord! In some cities there were hundreds who received the gospel... And then some jealous Jews would stir up the whole city against him! They saw how many people received the gospel and they were jealous - so they would stir up a certain class of people and then persecute and oppose the apostle! Paul had to flee from one city to another - and sometimes the Jews would even follow after him to speak things against his ministry! How about that as an opposition!

Today we may speak to our friends about the Lord, and the hardest thing to do is to be together with all your friends and speak something - it's almost as if they are all "judging you" and "not on your side" as you tell them you're a Christian. When you speak to your friends one-on-one is easier - but even then, sometimes they speak not so nicely about you, or even criticise / undermine your speaking and your working... Sometimes people would even reject you openly and scream and shout at you. As you pass leaflets with "The Mystery of the Human Life", "A Thirsty Mankind", or some Rhema cards, people would reject you or sneer mockingly at you... You manage to overcome the "inward struggles" and speak the gospel, and people are rejecting you!

One thing I was very encouraged with is that the VERY FACT that we are rejected and opposed when we speak about the Lord Jesus to others shows us that we are on the right track! The Lord Jesus was rejected and He still is being rejected today! The apostles were rejected - and many times they had to be physically fleeing a certain city because the very people to whom the salvation has come first - the Jews - would stir up the whole city against them! Whenever we announce the Lord Jesus Christ as the gospel, Satan's kingdom is being shaken and exposed, and the enemy does not like it. But we have the Lord Jesus on our side, and He is the One who speaks in us and through us! The sons of peace will hear the gospel, and they will believe!

Another matter I was encouraged with is the fact that in spite of all the opposition and persecution, there are SOME who receive the Word and who believe into the Lord! It is not up to us to pick and choose WHO will receive the gospel, but it is up to us to speak the Word of God! The Lord will accompany our speaking and He will speak His word through us. The seeking ones, those ones who are "ripened", ready to receive the Word, will receive the Lord! We would love to save everyone to whom we speak, but God carefully selects some that He will save! So even though the apostles were persecuted and sometimes they had to flee a city, there were some disciples who continued in these things back in that city! Praise the Lord!

All we need to do is just to SPEAK! All God needs today is not a great work that is welcomed by every one but He needs that all His believers would be strengthened into their inner man to SPEAK Christ - preach the gospel! The more we speak the gospel, the more we announce the good news, the more there will be an opposition - but at the same time the Lord is with us! His presence accompanies us as we cooperate with Him to bring in His kingdom! Also, there will be SOME among those to whom we speak that the Lord has worked on and has prepared them to receive Him! These ones will receive the good news and will come into God's kingdom! I don't know about you, but I want to learn to speak! Yes, there's a battle, but the Victorious One is on our side, and His arrows are in the heart of His enemy! Praise the Lord!

Roadworks everywhere, we are under construction (1 picture + 1experience with the Lord) 30 days challenge

2011-09-29T23:56:00.000+01:00

Well, it looks like I gave no broadband access again, so I will have to go ahead and post via mobile, and then tomorrow I will edit the article and then put some more links and do some more formatting. I probably need to get into the habit of writing a bit earlier on the blog, not that close to the midnight... Lord Jesus, my habits! I'm definitely a work in progress - and I hope there's a progress; I hope the Lord is going on in me and in us...

1 picture today - Roadworks Everywhere, we are under construction!

This picture was taken at one of the many sites in London these days, especially as the evening falls. London is getting ready for the 2012 Olympic Games, and so everywhere in London there are Roadworks, re-pavings, closed roads during night time for refurbishment and replacing the asfalt, etc. Sometimes main streets have only one way open during the night - Roadworks and under construction! There's improvements to the main streets, the enlargement of streets, the fixing of streets with problems, creating some parking space, putting up more traffic signs, etc - see the www.tfl.gov.uk/roadworks link to find out more!

1 experience With the Lord today - we are all "under construction"

I think we all should wear this sign whenever we meet with people or with those who are around others - we are in continual Roadworks, under construction all the time. Just when you think that now you learned a lesson in a particular area or with a certain person, you realise that you still need to be open and continue learning to adapt, to speak to others, to shepherd people, to listen to people, and to be around others. It may be only at the end of our life that we may be fully perfected and matured, but until then, we are all under construction!

In our personal life with the Lord, we are under construction! The Lord intends to work Himself into us and make us His expression, but we are so stubborn that EVERYONE else sees that we need to give up on some things or just drop it in certain situations - yet WE DON'T!!! We are struggling with the Lord step by step, and we don't give in to Him that easy. And this is good - it is the Lord is the One who operates in us both the willing and the working! We struggle with Him, we "defeat Him", we give in to Him... Sometimes we may think that now we are open and we cooperate with Him, but it is still Him in us strengthening us to allow Him to operate in us... - we're a mess, we're under construction, but the Lord does not give up on us!

In our work life or our student life - we are under construction, and there are many roadworks. We may get along with some people, but there are still others who just don't really like us... Or maybe sometimes we don't get along with anyone... Eventually we realise that the problem is not anyone else in our environment but the problem is ME - I am the problem! I need the Lord to work Himself into me, to transform me, to conform me to His image, so that I may get along with people and learn to work together with them. If we want to speak to them about the Lord - we either don't do it at all or we overdo it... But the Lord is there, right by our side, waiting for us to turn to Him... He's right inside, desiring that we would turn again to Him and open to Him... - He in us can do so much...

In our family life, and in all other aspects of our life - we are "under construction", there's roadworks taking place in us. The Lord wants to have a way in us, to create some avenues in which He can move freely... - there's "construction cones" and "roadworks signs" everywhere in our being - we're almost like a construction site, where you need to be careful when you visit, where you step, what you do... O, Lord... But just like Abraham in the Old Testament, through mud and water, we want to allow the Lord a little more ground, give Him a bit more of our cooperation, so that He would make His home in our hearts!

... it all starts with the little things in our life, the things we think are trivial and not that important. It starts with our time with the Lord in the morning, when we personally turn to Him by calling on His name first thing in the morning! We can breathe the Lord in even while in the shower, and we can open to Him even while brushing our teeth... Our morning time with Him is vital - it is like eating a good and healthy breakfast in the morning, something that will sustain you through your most productive part of the day!

In the little things during the day, when we have a break or we need to use the restroom - we can turn again to the Lord and breathe Him in. We can simply call on His dear name from all of our heart - sometimes we can do it audibly while most times we have to do it inwardly... Take a breathing-on-the-Lord-break, and then go back to studying / working / writing / doing things. If we keep in touch with the Lord like that, our spirit will be active, the Lord will have a way to speak something to us, and He can make His home in our whole being! He can re-arrange things, He can adjust the level of our expression, He can adjust and regulate our tone or the way we dress... - it's not us imposing rules on ourselves because the Bible says so, but it is the Lord in us with our full cooperation that does things and adjusts us + supplies us!

The Lord will never give up on us - once He came into us, He's here to stay! So He set up the perimeter in us and wants to work Himself into every part of our being... - today we are in this process of "roadworks" and "under construction" where the Lord gains our cooperation bit by bit, where He is making His home and bringing in His kingdom into our whole being... - we love Him so much for never giving up on and for continually operating in us!

this is not normal - you cannot just GET USED TO IT! (1 picture + 1experience with the Lord today) 30-day challenge

2011-09-29T11:52:00.000+01:00

I almost didn't do the small article for today, since my laptop is now in repairs... you really need to be careful with these devices, one wrong move and something breaks! And then trouble starts, money needs to be paid, time is spent with no PC...., but hopefully tomorrow the laptop will be returned safe and sound, as good as before(or even better). It's the same with everything / everyone: we need to be careful in our dealings and interactions with one another, or else someone may just "break down" and then a price needs to be paid to re-connect or re-establish the trust...

1 Picture Today - An Accident almost Right In Front of my Eyes!

The picture above is of an accident I almost witnessed on Holloway road this afternoon as I was doing some shopping. Everyone was out in the streets, it was a 26 degrees Celsius evening - very hot - and people were shopping or walking around, many of them being in a hurry to get to the Arsenal game tonight... And right there, in the middle of the street, on a busy road, two cars crashed into each other. What's more crazy is that people who witnessed the accident were not that much interested to help the ones in the crash, rather - every one was watching, taking pictures, and commenting about it.

This is Not Normal - You Can't Just Get Used to This! One experience with the Lord today

The truth is that in London these days we see all kinds of strange and crazy things - less than 2 weeks ago there was at least one fatality in a similar accident just up the street. We see people dressed in a crazy way walking around on the street, people with strange piercings and tattoos everywhere, people dressed with strange clothes and some with less clothes than others, people with hairstyles that defile you by just looking at them... Normal human beings dressed in a normal way and with a normal haircut - these are very rare(they are so rare that sometimes you're being stared at because you're not trying too hard to look as cool as they do]. It's becoming common to have all kinds of gang fights, teenage stabbings, thefts, muggings, etc here in London. ... And this is just something outwardly that - when you think about it - it sounds abnormal and crazy...

But you know, even in our personal life and in our private time, where no one sees us - if we think about it, we spend so much time online on websites like YouTube, Facebook, twitter, google+, social networks, news, entertainment websites... We are randomly browsing and watching... And the videos we watch... The news we hear and see... The conversations we have with people... Many times, if we think about all these, we have to admit that it's just not right, it's not good, it's not pleasing to the Lord... Just being online and reading / saying / doing stuff there - if you check with the Lord, He is NOT happy with that...

Everyone these days wants things out of the ordinary, not being "normal" but being someone unique and special... And the price we pay for this is all kinds of terrible things happening. I tell you, I have never seen or heard of so many accidents, riots, stabbings, gangs and fights, open violence, rebellion, disrespect, thefts, and evil speaking until recently - and we all kind of consider that, That's the way things are, we need to adapt to it and accept it! ... I want to say it again,

No, this is NOT normal, you can't just Get Used to This!

What's the solution? We can't really change the world, and it's obviously clear that there's no way to cure the people today... The best thing we can do is RIGHT now touch the Lord and give ourselves to Him. All we have is now - now, as the Lord touches us, we say AMEN to His word! Just a little opening to the Lord right now, and then again in a few minutes, as we do this and that... will keep us not only surviving and being sane, but will keep us growing in the Lord!

Wherever we are, whatever we are about to do, we can choose to turn to the Lord and enjoy Him! This is NORMAL, and we should get used to this! It is normal for us believers in the Lord to enjoy Him, even to have regular times set aside to spend with the Lord! This is normal, and this is good! This is the solution to the situation today - it starts with ME, I need to enjoy the Lord right now! Everyone is going their own way, being swept away by "a flood of dissoluteness"; what saves us from being in the same current is our enjoyment of Christ, the One who is really life and can live a life for God's purpose!

Many times the Lord within us wants to speak to us and He wants to draw us to Himself that we may just spend some personal time with Him! But we are too busy or too "drugged" with what's going on, what's new, what's the score, what our friends say on Facebook, the latest pictures with our friends, or even the news of what's going on in the world! Oh, Lord Jesus! How much we need to be de-contaminated, saved from the stupefying and drugging effect of the world, and washed in the water in the Word! ....

Lord, amen, save us from being swept away - we want to be those building the ark so that we may be saved from this crooked and perverted generation! Save us from being in the current of this age... Gain Your ark today - those full of vision, seeking You! Gain some who withstand the current of this age and who shine forth as luminaries in this dark age!

the Bible is the living word of God, so real and nourishing! (1 Picture + 1 Experience with the Lord today) 30-day challenge

2011-09-27T23:51:00.004+01:00

I was mentioning somewhere else that I started this Bible reading schedule, where you finish the whole New Testament in 3 months. I'm now in my second month and I'm going through Acts... It's not easy, some days I forget about reading, while other days I read 6-8 chapters... The average is to read 3-4 chapters every day. I have to say, even though I read the New Testament many times, going through it again in a consecutive way is so good! The Bible is really the living Word of God - it speaks to us and nourishes us! I love it when I have a 30mins or even 15mins to read the Word... But before then, here's

1 Picture Today - The Greenwich University in London

This is one of the many pictures I took of the Greenwich University in South East London, close to the Greenwich Maritime Museum and the Greenwich Mean Time. It is composed of some old buildings ;) that look very cool, and has lots of large and tall halls for lectures and stuff. Many times when you walk through you hear the students practicing the musical instruments... and when there's a nice weather, there's lots of people out on the grass! I apologize for this shallow introduction to such a wonderful university in London, but to find out more please visit the University of Greenwich website or University of Greenwich on wikipedia, the Greenwich maritime museum website, the Greenwich Mean Time / the GMT, etc. The best thing about this place is that there are SAINTS there, there are homes open around the campus, and there are many seeking students there!

1 Experience with the Lord - the Bible is the living Word of God, so real and nourishing!

What is the Bible to you? Is it just a book of knowledge? Is it a book of history? Or is it a book about God and His plan? Maybe you have read the Bible many times, but did this book become to you a book of life? I grew up reading the Bible, so I don't know as much history of my own country or of the world as much and as thorough as I know the history in the Bible. But at one point in time I had to make my own decision to continue reading the Bible and to continue feeding on the Lord. Actually, every day I need to make this decision - to drop other things and make time to read the Bible.

There are so many ways to read the Bible, but I recently started this "3 months reading through the New Testament" schedule, and it's going pretty good... - especially since there's the lettheword.com website where I can log in with my facebook credentials and input my daily reading! :) And I also have a companion to pursue with! That's so good... Now, as I'm reading through the New Testament, I am so impressed by the life of the Lord Jesus... He had 4 biographies that described many aspects of His life, His reaction to things happening, the persecution and opposition He encountered, the things He taught, the things He did... - so many things about Him.

But the Lord's life was kind of "tragic", since He died when He was 33 1/2 years old... Yet He resurrected and now - as we read in the book of Acts - He is with us all the time! It's amazing to see that the same Peter that the Lord rebuked and exposed so many times, the same Peter who denied the Lord - this one, after receiving the Lord's breath(John 20:22) / after receiving the divine life, he took the lead to speak for the Lord! And in one day there were 3000 people who received the Lord, and on another occasion 5000 more! What a difference does it make when you have the divine life! Peter became so mature, he took the lead in opening the gates of heavens with "the keys of the kingdom of the heavens" for the Jews (in Acts 2) and for the Gentiles(in the house of Cornelius, Acts 10).

As I'm reading the Bible, I'm so supplied and nourished! I love the Lord so much more, and I am so glad I can be washed by the water in the Word! I may not remember everything, but as I'm reading I love the Lord more and I know Him more.... It's not just words on the paper, and it's not just stories - even in Acts where we see that the Christian believers in the first century were persecuted and killed, we also see the Lord Jesus so present with them, giving them peace, speaking through them, strengthening them... There's a flow of the Spirit, there's a sweet church life, there's a speaking of the truth in the Bible... - it's the LIVING WORD OF GOD! I love the living Word of God, the Bible! It is so real, so nourishing!

I am praying that I would continue in this - it's a DAILY matter, a daily slot in my schedule - and I would read the Bible until I meet its Author! Let's pray for one another about this - that we would continue and persevere diligently in reading the Word of God daily... And maybe in the meantime I would get some companions who would also run with me in this!

go for the chicken and forget about the bones! (1 picture + 1 experience with the Lord today) 30-days challenge

2011-09-26T23:51:00.001+01:00

The title of this sharing is inspired from the article, My heart overflows with a good matter; I speak what I have composed concerning the King(Psalm 45) - via agodman.com, somewhere in the last few paragraphs. I like KFC (as I was sharing before) with the saints, and I mostly love having Nando's (grilled chicken - yummy!) with the saints. But when I have chicken, I don't emphasize or get disturbed by the bones of the chicken - I go for the meat! The skin is also good, especially if it's grilled.... - but the meat, that's what I like! It's the same with the church life - "go for the chicken in the church life"! More about this after,

1 Picture Today - King's Cross in Central London

This is the BIG building behind and above the King's Cross train and tube station in Central London. I promise you - I don't want to advertise for these guys, but it looks like Marriot Hotels owns this place also, and they call it, St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel in London. They have been working on this place to renovate it forever, and now it's open! I've been around King's Cross many times, especially since the saints live there and we meet around there many times. You can get the London Underground, the National Rail, and the International trains from this location (some leaving from St. Pancras). You can see more pictures of the hotel via, Explore St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel, or check out what's up around this are - King's Cross stuff. Of course, the best thing about King's Cross is the saints - they are the excellent, all my delight is in them!

1 Experience with the Lord - Go For the Chicken and Forget About the Bones!

I was touched by this illustration that brother Ed shared in the message for this week - Crystallization-Study of the Psalms(1), message 7. If someone comes to your home to visit, you don't put the rubbish bin on the table and tell him, Here, have a banana peel! Neither do you put the garbage somewhere that can be seen - NO! You hide the rubbish, you clean the house, and you offer the guest something good to eat and drink! And if there's rubbish you see around, you put it away! No one invites someone else to his house and makes sure that people see the litter bin / rubbish bin...

It's the same in the church life - you don't point out the defects or weaknesses of the saints; rather, we learn to cover one another in love, pray for one another, and see Christ in the saints! This is a secret that will help us in our whole life and will uplift our appreciation of the saints - seeing Christ in the saints! Sometimes you can't even see Christ living in some of the saints, but your negative speaking or your condemnation / exposing will NOT help! What really helps is for us to throw away any weaknesses, failures, or defects - into the universal rubbish bin, the lake of fire! What we want to focus on is enjoying Christ, ministering Christ, and seeing Christ in the saints!

It's interesting: we eat the WHOLE LAMB(since the lamb is Christ), but we don't "eat the whole chicken" - rather, we eat the meat and the other softer parts that can be edible(depends on people's taste...). What really matters about the fried or grilled chicken is that we eat the meat and forget about the bones! Put away the feathers, the bones, or even the dung - focus on the meat! Look away and throw away into the trash can any "feathers" or "bones" or even "dung" you may see among the saints - and focus on the meat! I wanna go for the meat and forget about the other stuff! If you try to eat the bone - God forbid... - you may get sick! In the church life, go for the chicken!

In the Old Testament king Balak got Balaam the prophet to curse the people of Israel, but Balaam couldn't do it - he rather blessed Israel(Num. 23-24). There is no failure or sin in Israel! God sees His people as being holy and without blemish, filled with Christ an put into Christ! Blessed are those who bless the church / Israel, and cursed are those who curse the church / Israel. We need to learn to see the saints as the Lord sees them - God-men filled with the growing and flourishing divine life! When we see the church and the saints as God sees them, we will speak well and bless the church!

The church life is wonderful! The church is glorious! The church in our locality is spotless and blameless - it is pure and it is glorious!

If we "go for the chicken", we will see Christ in the saints and we will minister Christ when there's a deficiency or any failures... I want to learn to know the saints not in a natural way but learn to know them according to Christ and no longer according to the flesh. And if there's a lack of Christ, I want to learn to minister Christ and pray for others - rather than criticizing or pointing out their condition... God knows our condition, but He also knows that His divine life in us can do it! He can do it in us! :) Go for the chicken, and forget about the bones or the feathers!

not a superficial knowledge but a constitution with the truth! (1 Picture + 1 Experience with the Lord today) 30-days challenge

2011-09-25T22:30:00.001+01:00

Many times I am asking myself and asking the Lord also, Lord, am I just "guilded" with some general knowledge of God and the Bible? Or am I constituted with the Word so that it became my intrinsic constitution? Sometimes if you're young and speak these high truths as seen in the Bible and pointed out in the ministry of the age - people may say, It's all superficial, it's not your constitution.... Or even more, maybe you think you have it but you didn't spend time to get into the truth adequately so that the truth may become yours by being wrought into you.... Yes, it's the Lord's job to bring about situations and things that would "burn these truths into our being", but we have a responsibility to diligently get into the truth - more about this after,

1 Picture for today - One Wall on Caledonian Road

I have no idea what this building used to be, but there used to be an old-style construction in this place, and it appears that they tore it down in the back but they left the front wall! Of course, the front wall looks good, classy, with the inscription and all... Location: on the Caledonian Road, close to the Caledonian Tube station. I have to say: it looks good, but it's just a facade, just something for others to see, with no proper back-up or anything behind it. One may get fooled by the looks of it, but if you look closer, you will see it's "superficial", and it is something that is not really that normal...

One Experience with The Lord - Not Having a Superficial Knowledge but having a Constitution of the Truth!

Today I was really impressed with my need to be constituted with the truth in the Word of God. I may have read the Bible many times, I may read it daily and pray over it, and I may read other ministry books that help me get into the intrinsic significance of the Word of God. But the question still is: is this a superficial knowledge of a lot of things in the Word of God and in the ministry, or is this a genuine and intrinsic constitution of the truth? You can't give others something which you don't already possess - you can't bring others to a place where you are not yet! I need to be constituted with the truth!

This doesn't mean that "I am superficial in my study of the Bible", but it means that I don't want to take the way of "having a facade" or "being gilded" with the knowledge of the Word of God(see the picture above), but I want to take the way of constitution. It is so easy to be "gilded with gold", but to be made of gold is costly, takes time, requires a price, and is precious. Actually, the Great Babylon is gilded with gold and precious things(Rev. 18:16) - the fallen and apostate Christianity has many "precious things" and persons they can be proud of - but inside there's all kinds of uncleanness.... How much we need to be cleansed by the blood of the Lamb and washed in the water in the Word so that we may be cleansed, purified, re-constituted, saturated, and intrinsically filled with the Truth in the Word!

Do you want to be useful to the Lord? Give yourself to get into the truth, to study the Word of God - especially with the footnotes - diligently. Don't take the way of general knowledge, and don't take the way of being superficial. We need know not only what books are in the Bible and in what order, not only what are the topics of the books of the Bible, not only what is God's economy as viewed in the Bible, but also what are the major topics in the whole Bible and expound them to the saints. Not just the brothers - but even the sisters - need to take this way.

I've been thinking about it - what if I don't just read the Holy Word for Morning Revival but I also get into the "further reading" bit? What if I read maybe even the life-study messages that are recommended there? What if I listen to the message for the week - once or twice? I can tell u what may happen - there may be a deposit that is being diligently - if we are diligent about it - constituted into us. Little by little, day by day, bit by bit... - we gain a deposit of the truth, something precious in the Word of God. And if we come to the home meetings and the group meetings, we can function and be perfected in our speaking!

This whole world is not dying because of the diseases, famine, or other natural calamities... they are dying because of the lack of food! The food the Christians put today on the table for others is "junk food", "ready-made food", "microwave food", etc. or at the best, food that is weak in nutritious elements - you can't survive or grow on that food! But what about us? We have the riches of Christ in the Word of God(let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly!!! Col. 3:16), we have the ministry of the age opening up the riches in the Word of God, and we even have the high peak truths of the Bible being unveiled before us... what's left for us is to...

DIG!

Get some Digging into the Word! Get some digging into the ministry! Labor on the Word, on the footnotes, on the life-studies, on the ministry books, on the morning revival... get filled with the Word of God! We have the storehouses of Joseph, and the whole world is in a famine! Give Them Food! First YOU eat and be filled, YOU be constituted, and then "go to a world that is dying" and "rescue the perishing" by speaking to them the high gospel! People already know and have rejected the low gospel preached today - they need something HIGHER, something that gives them purpose and meaning in their life! People need to hear God's Economy! They want to know God's Full Salvation! They desire Christ, the Reality, the Desire of all the nations!

[every time I read the Word and the ministry I am being exposed - Lord, I need to and want to labor in the Word and the ministry much more! Save me from just "mentally understanding these things" - I want to be constituted with the truth! Not just "facebook statuses" with things I was impressed in the Word(which are good, but you can't live on those!) - but a constant living according to the vision given by the deposit of the Word and the ministry in our being! You can't take a break from or run away from that! I Want to be Constituted!]

using Facebook for the Lord - usurping Facebook! (1 picture + 1 experience with the Lord) 30-day challenge

2011-09-24T23:51:00.001+01:00

Yes, you have heard it right, I am speaking about Facebook, the website which some people love and spend a lot of time on (I wonder why and I wonder who...) and which other people hate and speak against! There are so many nasty and not-so-nice things going on on facebook, starting from poking and stalking people to the pictures of the parties and terrible things which you sometimes wish have never heard of / read / seen anywhere... But there is a way, and we all are learning how to do this, to USURP Facebook, that is, Use Facebook For The Lord! Before then though, here's,

1 Picture for Today - The Highgate School

This is Highgate School in North London, in an area called Highgate :) You can visit their website via, Highgate School. Apparently this school is for children / pupils ages 3-18, so it is quite a wide range of ages that are schooled there... This school, just like many other schools in the UK, have a "traditional style" building, with the tall metal fence, the red-brick wall, the old-style construction... - quite a stylish building. Sometimes if you see it at night it gives you the chills, so somber and dark... [Harry Potter style building...] Anyways, apparently this school is less than 20mins walk from where I live, and I discovered it once :)

1 Experience with the Lord today - Using Facebook for the Lord (even Usurping Facebook!)

I'm pretty sure all my readers are on facebook - actually, the way you found out about this article is on facebook! :) People spend hours every day there - it used to be that the young people would hang out in the park or in a young-people-style restaurant, but now everyone is on facebook! You put pictures online, play games, poke people, add friends or remove friends, comment on anything going on(from games to statuses and pictures), post statuses, say happy birthday, etc. For some people internet is just Facebook. [by the way, we can be friends on facebook :) - Stefan Misaras]

Some people condemn Facebook to the uttermost, and speak against it + try to convince others it's bad. And they are right in many ways - besides being a waste of time, Facebook can also accelerate the degradation of humanity if used "not with a vision". There's almost nothing useful one can do on facebook, they say, and the most common status is, I'm bored! Girls are being sought after and poked / friended / commented / etc by the boys, and vice-versa... It's a whole new world...

But can you use facebook with the Lord? Can you use facebook and be on facebook For The Lord? This is the question each Christian needs to ask himself - Lord, how can I be a Christian on facebook? Not just a human being seeking to connect with old friends or keep in touch with friends and family, but to have a proper testimony for the Lord! Not an extremist / radical for Christ, but how can we be proper human beings + proper students / young people / young adults / parents + at the same time having the Lord's testimony there? Well, I have some suggestions, which most of us know / practice...

Disclaimer: Facebook is becoming more and more a very personal, very delicate, and very private thing - no one can give others advice on how to do things on facebook, no one can tell others to take off a picture or re-arrange stuff, no one wants to be tagged in certain places, and many get offended if they are being either mentioned by others / tagged by others / not mentioned or tagged by others. It's strange how people "own their facebook profile" with such a passion... [tip: just wait, these days they are rolling out the New Facebook Profile, with Timeline... - so cool! You will definitely LOVE your profile... O, Lord!]

Being a Christian on Facebook

Whenever I get on facebook to do anything, I turn my heart to the Lord(2 Cor. 3:16)! This is the first thing and the best thing we can do! Just turn to Him, call on Him, and ask Him about things! Tell Him to protect your eyes and your heart... - Lord, browse facebook with me!
associate yourself with the right crowd of people! Yes, everyone loves their friends, at school or at home, etc - but the best friends we have are the saints in the church life! We take a stand for the Lord by associating ourselves (in pictures, statuses, events, facebook pages and groups, etc) with the saints!
Be a fan of Christian Students facebook pages! Find the other Christian Students on the campus and associate yourself with them! In the UK there's Christians at Uni, Christians in Kingston, Christians in Central London, etc...
Be a fan of other Christian content fan pages on facebook! Since you enjoy it every day, why not be a fan of the Holy Word for Morning Revival Page! And if you're in the Central Line of the Bible / Crystallization-Study of Psalms / other morning revival, find it on facebook!
Share something about the Lord on your WALL every day! It's not much, and if you spend 2-3hrs on facebook, why not share what you REALLY enjoy with your friends? Believe it or not, but your friends are being entrusted to you by the Lord that you may minister Christ to them!
Happy Birthday! + add a little prayer / a portion of enjoyment from the Word of God - on the wall of the birthday people... It is so encouraging to not just say "Have a good one" but also impart something of Christ...
Join some Christian groups - like "The Universal Body of Christ", "Genuine Lovers of Christ", "Morning Revival", "Christian life is a life of living Christ", etc. Of course, you can create your own group with your companions to pursue the Lord together...
Events - when you have some student welcome dinners, students meetings, young people events, home meetings, etc - create an event and invite the saints and your friends to these!

... these are just some of the many things one can do on facebook to be both a proper human being (catching up with friends and family) and a proper Christian. Also recommending a new Facebook Fan page - Christian Students in Central London :) [see more such facebook fan pages with Christian students via this list online]

It is worthwhile to waste your life and your time on the Lord (1picture + 1 experience with the Lord today) 30-day challenge

2011-09-23T23:35:00.001+01:00

Especially at the end of the week, when everyone on Friday night wants to go out and party, I ask myself the same question again and again, Is this Worthwhile? Is it really worthwhile to waste my time and my energy on the Lord and on the church life? - or should I just "slide along" and drift along the current that sweeps everyone... or maybe just stay at home and catch up with some work, some rest... At least until now, as far as I see it and the Lord allows it / shows me concerning this, I think it is definitely worthwhile to waste my life and my time on the Lord. And I hope He will continue to strengthen this vision in each of His believers - His worth, His preciousness, His excellence, is so much more precious and worthwhile than anything or anyone else can offer...

1 Picture for today - The Corner Cottage, somewhere in Coventry

This is the Corner Cottage somewhere in Coventry. Very close to the campus. Some saints live there. They open their home for the visiting saints and for the students. This home has lots of bedrooms and a nice backyard, great for children to play. What really is nice about this house is the open heart and open fridge the saints have for the new ones, the students, the saints, everyone! Many people live for themselves, and they care ONLY for themselves, but these saints do not really care that much for themselves. I have been recently touched with the high price some people pay to be open not only to the Lord personally but also to be open with all they have towards the other members of the Body...

1 Experience with the Lord Today - It is Worthwhile to Waste Your Life and Your Time on the Lord

In the Gospels we see this particular lady who listened to the Lord Jesus when He was speaking, and she understood that He was about to die very soon. What she did was so sweet - she bought an alabaster flask with pure ointment and poured it on Him, "wasting" close to 1 year's worth of pay on the Lord Jesus(Matt. 26:8). To her, He was not just the Teacher, the Master, the Messiah, or even the Son of God - to this one, He was the most precious One, the most lovely One, and the One whom she loved. What she had most precious, she poured out on Him. [read the footnote on this verse] Others considered it a waste - to her, it was NOT a waste!

The Lord Jesus commended this woman saying that this is the story of the gospel - not only that God became a man to redeem man and bring man back to God, but also that man loves God and treasures God to such an extent that they pour out on Him what they have most precious. There is such a group of seeking ones and Jesus-lovers on the earth that don't look at the others, at the price, or at the time - they just "waste themselves and all they have" on Him. To those who love Him in such a way, He is altogether worthy of their offering - and they don't "waste" things on Him, but offer a sweet fragrant sacrifice to Him as a testimony of His beauty!

Practically, when it comes down to our living, how can we waste our life on the Lord since we see that He is so precious? This lady sought the opportunity and grabbed it so that she would do this. We also can grasp the opportunity today to waste ourselves on Him, especially as we see that His second coming is drawing near. The Lord Jesus is the most precious and lovely One, and it is worthwhile to waste our life and our time on Him. When we taste Him in the morning and we continue to contact Him throughout the day, He becomes so precious to us. The worldly things fade away, and their value decreases when compared to Him. Even more: we would gladly give up things, relationships, positions, golden futures - "wasting them" on the Lord Jesus....

Going even more practically into our daily life, I realized that making it to the home meeting on a Friday night, though I'm dead tired and super-loaded with things to do - wasting this time on the Lord with the saints is a worthwhile thing to do. It's not a waste - the Christ you gain and the fellowship you enjoy far surpasses anything or anyone else can offer you. Even while coming back from the home meeting last night, the view London had to offer... - drunk young men and women, people standing outside of the clubs and waiting, people smoking, some people being taken to the hospital while others are arrested because of the fight they got into... - though these things may seem "cool" outwardly, they rather make you empty inside and don't add up to an eternal meaning and worth....

Setting up a regular schedule to read the Bible, contacting the Lord early in the morning to enjoy Him, spending time with the Lord to confess your sins, praying with your companions, praying for your friends, talking to the Lord as you go through the day, opening your situation to some older saints for more fellowship, visiting the saints, being in the homes of the saints, etc - these are just some simple examples of how you "waste your life" on the precious and loveable Lord Jesus. He's worth it. He's so much more precious than words can describe! How I love Him...

it's all going down unless you're growing in the Lord(1 pic + 1 experience with the Lord) 30 day challenge

2011-09-22T23:42:00.000+01:00

There we go again, a quirky title, just like many of the catchy phrases you see on the advertisements on the streets, on the bus, at the tube stations, and literally everywhere in London. Sometimes even on the way to the Lord's Table meeting, as you're praying within and contacting the Lord, if you look around on the tube and glance at the advertisements on the wall, you get out of your spirit! Everything is catchy, gives you something to think about.... but today it's simple:

1 Picture for today - Topshop in Oxford Circus in London

This is a "twisted picture" of the Topshop in Oxford Street in London - Topshop Oxford Circus London - one of the most desired-to-shop-at places for many youngsters today. Everyone in London wants to go to Oxford Street, because anything you want can be found there: jeans, snickers, t-shirts, sports shoes, suits, electronics, mobile phones, jackets, underwear, etc. Among those shops is the TopShop - one of the many very expensive shops there, who sometimes has some reduced prices on stuff and everyone goes there! They sell clothing, designer collection, shoes, accessories, make-up, gifts, etc - visit their website to find out more (including pictures of skinny people wearing their clothes).

1 Experience with the Lord - It's All Going Down if You're Not Growing in the Lord!

I don't really know whether the title explains what I'm trying to say, but it's something like this: if we are not growing in the Lord every day, we don't "stagnate"; rather, we are "going down". The reason the picture above is slightly inclined is that the whole world today, with all the shops and the shiny stuff, is GOING DOWN. Morality is not present anymore, ethics are up to you, respect is not found unless you're a close friend, love is re-defined to include all kind of perversions and twisted inclinations, and people are not pure anymore.

No one is seeking God - not even one(Rom. 3:10). They think they re-define God just as they try to re-define love and marriage. There's a trend today towards immorality, disrespect, not caring for anyone but yourself, reading and doing your best to be influenced by people who think the way you do, refusing to think about God or talk about God, rejecting and despising those who believe in God and love God, ... - and, in general, doing what YOU want but in such a way that you ignore God and His Word.... - the world is going down to the extent that they would rather believe a lie than believe the truth(2 Thes. 2:11)...

WHY am I saying all the above? It is simply because if we as believers in Christ, as lovers of the Lord, as saints in the church life, and as young pursuers of Christ - if we are not DESPERATE to grow in the divine life every day, we are being swept away by the trend in this world, the current that culminates in the lake of fire! If we ignore the Lord today, if we don't pay attention to His speaking within us tomorrow, and if we are not willing to pay the price to meet with our companions and with the saints, then we are not "surviving" or "stagnating" - rather, we are being little by little swept away by the strong current in the world!

In these last days, before the Lord returns, we do not have time to waste. I waste too much time on meaningless things, and especially after a home meeting like tonight - where we enjoyed the Lord Jesus as the Good Shepherd as revealed in Psalm 23, we had some new ones, we all shared something of our enjoyment in the Word, and we had fellowship with one another around some nice Thai Green Curry and some healthy fruits as dessert... - I realized this even more: I need to Grow In Life More Today! I know I can't grow faster than the speed of life, and I can't grow by just "desiring to grow"....

Lord Jesus, grow in me! Gain us as mature young saints who are here as a stepping stone for Your return! Save us from being influenced or swept away from You by the current of this age! Lord, keep us close to You! Keep us in the middle of the church life. Make us those who seek You with our whole heart, those who are willing to pay the price of their soul life that they may gain You!

Whether we like it or not, whether we believe it or not, or whether we want to hear this / know this or not - the whole world - with all its glitter and its mud - is lake-of-fire-bound, and unless we are actively building the testimony of Jesus today (like Noah did in the old days) no matter how strong we are, we will be swept away in this flow! Daniel HAD TO refuse the king's food so that he would not defile himself. We HAVE TO stay away from certain places, certain people, and certain situations - so that we would not be defiled. But we also can choose the Lord right now - today! We can turn to Him right now so that He would continue to grow in us more today!

we all know it - now we need to practice it! (1 pic + 1 experience with the Lord) 30 day challenge

2011-09-21T23:55:00.000+01:00

Many times people try to encourage us to do something, explaining how good it is to that particular thing, how healthy it is, etc... and you know what, you already KNOW IT! In my case it can be about going to gym and eating properly - not too much, not too little, not too much junk food, not too many sweets, etc... - and I KNOW IT! But now I need to PRACTICE it! ... But before I get into this, here's the,

1 Picture for today - The Grosvenor House in Central London

The above is Grosvenor House - home of JW Marriott Hotel in Park Lane, Central London, very close to the Hyde Park and the US Embassy. Only fancy cars around, and all kinds of stylish events and conferences are being held there. I heard about it "by the hearing of my ear" and I knew it was in London - I KNEW IT! - yet I wanted to see it! So one day I was around on a street called Park Lane, and here it is - the Grosvenor House! Of course, this picture is not a match to the official Pictures of the Grosvenor House, A JQ Marriott Hotel, from their website! [read their website for more info...]

At SparksDirect.co.uk we sell a light fitting called Grosvenor Light and another whole range called, Park Lane Wall Lamps, and recently I have been writing some articles on the NewLights blog to promote and introduce them(Park Lane table lamp / pictures of Park Lane Range). I have actually never known that these lamps are named after real streets in London and real buildings in London! One day I heard that there's actually a house called Grosvenor House, and there's a street in London called Park Lane.... - and since then, even though I KNEW where they were, I wanted to go visit them! Yes, we all KNOW it, but now we need to SEE it and PRACTICE IT!

1 Experience with the Lord - we all know it, now we need to practice it!

Just like with many things in life, we may KNOW a lot about the Lord Jesus - especially if you're in the church life practically, or if you're a seeking one pursuing the Lord daily - and about having a personal relationship with Him. We know we need to read the Bible daily, we know we need to confess our sins whenever the Lord shines on us, we know we need to regularly pray daily, we know we have to make it to at least one home meeting per week, we know we need to listen to the Lord's speaking within us... - we know all these things and so much more! Now it is time to practice it!

What use is it for me to know that there's a street in London called Park Lane, and on that street there's a hotel in a house called, Grosvenor House - if I don't go to visit that place EVEN THOUGH I live in the same city with that place?!? It kind of doesn't make sense... In the spiritual life, we don't just need to know things about God, about the Bible, about the church life, or about the saints - we need to be open to the Lord and enter into the life practices that we may OWN these things in our practical living! I need to practice being grouped with the saints to pray together! I need to practice reading the Bible regularly!

This is what I was pondering over today... these last days even the children know a lot of things, and the young people think they know everything. But what about our experience? Lord, I want to really spiritually see the things in the Bible, so that they may become my vision! I want this vision to be inscribed and written into me so that it may be my living, my practice, and even my being! Make me one like Paul who said to the king, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision (Acts 26:19).

... and this is a passive-active matter. It's not "me doing this", neither is it "me waiting for the Lord to do it in me" - it's God mingled with man, man learning to take the initiative and God coming in to fill man, and somehow being open to the Lord that He may do it in us... I hope you get what I'm saying - God will never come to you to force you to do things which you know you should do, but He will come in and strengthen you + be everything to you if you take the initiative to do something in oneness with Him! Lord, may I know You more! May I experience You more! May I practice living one with You more!

One portion of the Bible that sometimes sends chills down my spine when I read it or hear it is where the Lord says, Those who know much and don't do will be punished with more stripes than those who knew little and did something according to what they knew(approx. Luke 12:48). As believers we can't just "know", we need to enter in by practicing these things! Is there a home meeting close to where you live? Don't just KNOW about it, but make sure you pay the saints a visit! Is there a younger one that needs shepherding once or twice a week? Pray about it and the Lord will release your time for this... - the divine life in us is LIVING and ACTIVE, not DEAD and PASSIVE... - that's what I love about it!

the football game tonight vs the Real Game going on (1 Pic + 1 Experience with the Lord today), 30-day challenge

2011-09-20T23:47:00.000+01:00

I think I got myself into trouble with this "one picture per day", since sometimes I am not really going out in London - unless you count going to home meetings, prayer meetings, young people meetings, and the Table Meeting as "going out"... Today I was thinking - well, apart from work, gym, and the prayer meeting, where can I take a picture? And then it dawned on me, as I was walking to the saints' house tonight - it is such a privilege to be ONE with the Lord in His prayer today! One with the saints in praying for the Lord's interest! But then I got to come home after the prayer meeting and this is what I saw this...

The Football Game Tonight VS The Real Game Going On - 1 Pic + 1 Experience with the Lord today

This is how Holloway Road looks like on most Tuesday nights at 9.30-10.30pm, and this picture was taken close to Highbury and Islington tube station. Almost every Tuesday night there's a football game at the Emirates - Arsenal plays some team, and tonight there was Arsenal Vs. Shrewsbury in the Carling Cup. Don't ask me what that means, but it looks like Arsenal won 3-1(thank you, BBC Sport News). As I am intending to make my way up the Holloway Road, thousands of people are streaming down from the game, many reaching home close to midnight... The buses rarely work during this time, and both Holloway Road and Highbury & Islington stations have limited access... - too many people!

There have been many times I made my way up the Holloway Road against the crowd, being literally bumped and kicked shamelessly by the people streaming down from the football stadium... Usually the Brits say, "Sorry", or they apologize somehow - but not after the game, and not these people! Hundreds of British people, Polish people, Romanian People, Arabs, Indians, French, etc walking down the street from the game... You hear all kinds of languages being spoken when they pass you by. All these come from the tonight's football game - which sometimes coincides with the time for the prayer meeting, Tuesday night at 8pm.

So what about this football game? In the football game thousands of people get together to watch some select ones play ball on a wide football pitch, and usually one of the team loses and the other wins. But no matter whether one wins or loses, the score counts towards the final score - after many other games... It's a whole system, with points, penalties, goals, etc - it will give you a headache to try to understand... And then there's the many transfers of players, the coach, the boss, the TV commercials, the club, the fans, the magazine, the scarf, etc. Everything is to get people fully involved and occupied with this game, out of which they don't gain anything - but they spend lots of money!

What about the REAL GAME? As we were praying tonight, though less than 20 of us, I had the clear feeling that we touched the Lord's heart and we were praying one with Him. Can you believe that? We as human beings can move God's hand to accomplish His heart's desire by us praying in oneness with Him! We don't just pray for our needs, our problems, our families, our new ones, our jobs, etc - we pray for God's will to be done! We pray for God's economy to be accomplish! We pray that God's kingdom would come and His will be done on earth as it is being done in the heavens(Matt. 6:10)!

When we pray in this way, God has a group of people on earth that are one with Him in the heavens - this is all He needs so that He would go on in His move and accomplish what's on His heart! I believe that in the prayer meeting we're praying THE REAL GAME, the game that is played in the universe between God and Satan, where we already know the end score! In the end, Satan loses and has NOTHING, while God wins and gains the glory in everything. And we are here to "be God's team", be on God's side - not just "God's fans" wearing "the scarf with God's club initials", but to be One With God!

The "ball" we play with - and we surely do play ball in the prayer meeting - is our prayer one with His prayer! It's actually a real thing and also a very good experience to enter into Christ's prayer in the heavens and pray what's on His heart! Christ as the Great High Priest is interceding right now, and we can be those who hear His prayer, utter His prayers, and offer Christ's prayers to God as the Body of Christ. When this happens, when God gains a response and a cooperation from man in the principle of incarnation, He wins! He can tell Satan,

Look: these men whom you have usurped and damaged now have not only been redeemed and filled with the divine life but they also cooperate with Christ to pray God's will on earth! Go to the lake of fire, Satan! Your sentence has been uttered - and your full judgement is being hastened!

:) I want to choose to play The Real Game - and be on God's side! This doesn't mean I will never watch a football game (remember, some things like these can shepherd others or can "waste your time") - but when the time is for the REAL GAME to be played, when "the game is on", I want to join the winning team and learn to be One With The Lord in the Body so that He may accomplish His economy! :)

even though you're busy, you get really, really hungry! - 1 Pic + 1 Experience with the Lord(30-day challenge)

2011-09-19T22:56:00.000+01:00

:) A new challenge! At least as far as I see it now, I think it will be something like, 1 Pic + 1 Experience with the Lord today... Since I'm in London, I was thinking to put one picture from London on the blog and say something about it, then share something from what I enjoyed today... I have received a lot of feedback concerning the previous challenge, One Meaningful Thing I Did Today - and it looks like it is very encouraging to find out about our experience with the Lord! O Lord Jesus.... So without further delay, here it is:

Even Though You're Busy, You Get Really, Really Hungry! - 1 Pic + 1 Experience with the Lord Today

This is Archway, close to where I live and work. At 6pm, everyone is running - literally running - to the bus, from the bus, from the office, towards home... you have to dodge people on the street, make sure you don't hinder other busy running people, the people coming off the bus or getting on the bus or running after the bus.... To the Left is the Archway Tower, and straight ahead there's Office Spaces :) and all kinds of companies renting it. Right behind that building is the Archway Leisure Centre(where I go to the gym :) almost every day) And there's Bus 43 :) which goes all the way from High Barnet to London Bridge.

Mondays are usually busy days - lots of things piling up from the weekend, there's a new week in which we need to take care of the urgent and important things, etc. At work is even busier these days - lots of orders, lots of enquiries, people calling to check the stock and more info, others checking what's going on with their orders, etc... It's fun, you can have a decent conversation with many of the people who call. I love doing some customer care from time to time :)

And then there's the daily routine - every day there are some things that you HAVE to do, and specifically on every day of the week there are some things that you know you need to do. Today - Monday - I was so busy that today I almost forgot it's time to take a lunch break! And when I came back from my lunch break - after eating some physical food :) and praying with a brother... - I was so busy that only after 5.20pm I realized, Maybe it's time to go home... - there are so many things that keep you busy that 24h in the day are not enough!

Even though I was so busy today that I almost had no time to take a break, at the end of the day I got hungry - not hungry physically, but I got hungry spiritually! You know, with all the things you do, the things you accumulate, you take care of, or even the things you achieve - they never satisfy you or fill you inward hunger! Things may go well, or things may not go so well - in both cases, you never are satisfied... Even while doing something good, something noble, commendable - achievements or success, failure or distress, nothing satisfies your inner thirst and hunger!

I got so hungry that I knew - I had to get into the Word of God! I had to read the Bible! After a whole day of reading, writing, speaking, etc - I need to eat the Lord! And not only a little bit - but I need to seriously have some "big dinner" of Christ! A "steak of Christ", a solid portion of Christ... So I went to the gym and I got to go through John 4-6 (long chapters, filled with life and Spirit!). Also, I got to listen to almost the entire message 6 from the Crystallization-Study of Psalms(1) on The Organic Shepherding of the Pneumatic Christ. Such a supply to hear again that Psalm 23 is according to God's economy: Christ in His ascension is shepherding us and taking good care of our inner being that we may grow in life, be living and functioning members of the Body, and accomplish God's economy!

It is so good to EAT when you're really really HUNGRY! Just like my previous experience with drinking the real water (and not going for Pepsi) - when you're hungry, don't eat fast food, junk food, ready made food, or all kinds of food that doesn't fill your hunger! Eat the Word of God! And as you're eating, drink of the Lord Jesus by calling and saying AMEN, LORD! It is very good to learn to EAT when you're hungry - eat the Word, eat the Lord in the ministry which opens up the Word of God, learn to turn your heart to the Lord... - and whatever we eat, that's what we become!

Hallelujah, Eating Jesus is the Way!

year 7 conference in Coventry - One Meaningful Thing I Did Today (30-day challenge)

2011-09-16T16:46:00.000+01:00

It's actually, One Meaningful Thing I'm About to Do today :) since the conference starts tomorrow morning. As I was saying yesterday at the end of the article, I need to finish this 30day challenge with the "One Meaningful Thing I Did Today" here - and so I'm taking the weekend off :) to spend time with the saints and the young people.... There's a year 7 young people's conference I'm going to for the weekend - so excited and happy about it! :) But I'm still considering what challenge should I start on Monday September the 19th... As for today, here it is:

Year 7 Conference in Coventry - One Meaningful Thing I Did Today

Not sure if YOU were raised up in a Christian family, or a family of seeking believers, but when someone grows up in such an environment he / she is very blessed! Just imagine: your whole life as you grow up you're surrounded by God-men, people who love God, those who are being transformed daily, people who enjoy God! I still remember how many of the other believers we met with when I was young took care of me, helped me, were really interested in me, and they were so happy to see me! I was growing up in the saints' homes, they visited our home, we were together... - such a blessing!

In such an environment you grow up loving the Lord, knowing the Lord, singing, reading the Bible... - but it is quite difficult to know One Particular Point in your life when YOU GOT SAVED. Some people do remember such a time, others remember the time the Lord touched them and they got baptized - but me, together with so many others, I don't remember "when I was saved"! Of course, I WAS SAVED, and I AM SAVED, but there wasn't a specific time in my life - that I remember - that I took this decision... Well, the same happens with many children and young people today, and so we are very burdened to SOLIDIFY THEIR SALVATION, to make sure they are saved!

To be saved is simple - you repent and believe into the Lord! Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved(Rom. 10:13)! So this weekend we have a small conference dedicated to the young people in school year 7 who are open and ready to receive the gospel! As I was sharing yesterday, we are praying so much for this time! We are praying that the Lord would have a way to expose the world, expose Satan, the Satanic scheme and his usurpation, the slavery in Egypt under Pharaoh... and strengthen the young ones to choose the Lord! Pray for us in this time - we need the prayers of all the Body!

For the Lord to return, He needs a generation of young people who are absolute for Him, those who are the voluntary consecrated ones, the Nazarites of today! David defeated Goliath when he was 13 years old - therefore, there's no limit to the age: you can't say, "You're too young...". As soon as someone is conscious of being a sinner, conscious of God's salvation and His way of redemption, he can repent and believe into the Lord! We pray for these ones - who know their God and have resolutions of heart! Lord, gain these ones even this weekend! Gain some young ones all over the earth to meet Your need!

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I am looking forward to your comments - what do you think the next challenge should be? Leave me your thoughts... [most probable: one picture of London and some description + one thing about the Lord I enjoyed today! - but I want to hear what YOU think...]

not I but Christ; not us but the prayers! - one meaningful thing I did today (30-day challenge)

2011-09-15T23:50:00.002+01:00

The title is pretty self-explanatory, but just to have a certain background against which the title may "shine out"... we human beings are amazing "creatures" - always developing, accumulating information and knowledge, growing, etc. We learn to walk and to speak(as babies), we learn to read, write, exercise, have performances in the classes we're interested in, etc. We are being trained to be "better people" our whole life. We go to kindergarten, grammar school, high school, university, post-grad, Ph. D, post-doc... all these things we do to be trained to know, to know how to do things, to invent, to be someone...

Sometime during our life the Lord Jesus, the Immense Magnet in the universe, attracts us to Himself and captivates our attention - we believe into Him and are captivated by His charming beauty(Heb 12:2 + note). When we are regenerated, something interesting happens - we receive another life, even another Person into us! Until now we decided to do, say, be things - but now there's another Person, Jesus Christ, living in us! He is "bothering us" and "speaking to us", giving us life and peace - or giving us the sense of death / uneasiness / unpleasantness when we are in some places or do some things that the Lord doesn't like! We who used to do "whatever we want" now listen more and more to this Wonderful One within us.... - and this brings me to,

Not I But Christ; Not Us But The Prayers! - One Meaningful Thing I Did Today

As believers in Christ we daily learn that if we turn to the Lord within, if we exercise our spirit, we get more LIFE and we become more like Him! So we choose to turn... There's conflicts between us and the Lord - we hold our ground, choose things according to our pleasure and preference... loose the Lord's presence - then return to Him and repent + confess... fail again, make mistakes + return to Him... until there's a choice to be made - just like Paul said in Gal. 2:20,

I am crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who lives, but it is Christ who lives in me! And the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

More and more in our daily life and in our experience we have this deeper realization - Lord, no longer I but Christ! I want to enjoy You and experience You to such an extent that the old self is crucified, even my person without Christ is on the cross, and Christ is the One who lives in me! Christ organically replaces me to live in me! But it is still I who live - Christ is NOT "using me as a mindless robot to do His will" - NO! I still live - I live in faith, in the organic union with the Lord! This faith is not of me - it is of the Son of God, who loved me and just gave Himself up for me!

The Lord will get us to the point where we realize that IT IS STILL I WHO LIVES - though we love the Lord, we love the Word, we love spending time with the Lord, it is still Stefan who lives, not Christ! When the Lord shows us this, we desperately pray and give ourselves to Him, and we learn to give Him more ground in us, allowing Him to make His home in our hearts... - until little by little, it is "some of me and some of Him", "less of me and more of Him", "none of me and all of Him". Christ WILL be formed in us; Christ WILL live in us, and Christ WILL be fully expressed through us - today we are learning to cooperate with Him in this....

On the other hand, in working for the Lord, coordinating in the church life, serving the Lord in different practical services, helping with the children of the young people, serving with the students, etc - in all that we do for the Lord, He wants us to FIRST PRAY. The younger we are in the Lord, the more full of natural strength we are to do things for Him. More and more though, as time goes by and the Lord is faithful to speak to us and expose us, our natural strength and natural capacity - in His mercy - is running out and is being exposed to the uttermost as being useless to Him! And then we come to the conclusion, I CANNOT DO THIS, I CAN'T SERVE THE LORD!

This is going from one extreme to the other - from "I can do this - bring it on!" to, "I can't do it, I give up!". What the Lord wants us to realize is that yes, we can do it, and no, we can't do it! First of all, we need to PRAY! Before we do or speak anything for the Lord, we need to pray. Why do we try to work so much(and yet accomplish so little) when we can accomplish much more by our prayer than by our working!?! What are we trying to DO FOR THE LORD? He is Almighty, He can do everything - what can we do for Him? It is an insult to the Lord to try to do something for Him without first consulting Him and praying to be one with Him....

When David in the Old Testament wanted to build God a house, God told him that He wants to rather build Himself into David first and then what comes out of David(Solomon) will build a house for God. First of all, we need to be thoroughly mingled with God by praying ourselves into God. And then, once we are in God, one with God, we can do something for God - and this is actually God doing something in us and through us. So then it is No Longer Us, but the Prayers! We pray ourselves into God, we pray God's prayers which are put in us, and we pray out God's will to be Done! We execute God's will on earth by uttering the prayers that He need to move on earth! Wow...

<< the above is just something I realized today while I was doing my job at work (and I realized that it is STILL STEFAN WHO LIVES, NOT CHRIST) and as I was walking home after the home meeting (and I realized that IT IS SO MUCH OF ME TRYING and not so much of praying...). So today I want to choose the Lord - to be infused with Him and mingled with Him to the point that it is Christ living in me! Also, why try to do so many things - which things, by the way, need to be taken care of - when you can call a brother and pray together to be built up into the Triune God and be mingled with Him!?! >>
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This article may be one of the last ones on this theme - on this challenge - since I have to "change the challenge", the 30-day period is almost up now... What do go for next? On the one hand I have been encouraged by all the testimonies and sharings and comments of all the readers - either here or on twitter or via facebook - to go on... But I think I want to go for something a bit different but on the same topic kindda... What about... "One London Picture (with description) + One Verse I enjoyed today(with a short sharing)"? - I am eagerly waiting for your comments on this matter - I want your opinion / feeling on this(that is, if you have read the entire article until down here)!

£2 for your smile, or simple ways to shepherd one another - One Meaningful Thing I Did Today (30-day challenge)

2011-09-14T23:56:00.000+01:00

Catchy title, isn't it? :) These days I'm more and more before the Lord concerning my blog since the last thing I want it to be is "an outlet of Stefan". We all - and especially me - have so much STUFF to talk about! We can say so many things, we can give our opinion on so many topics, we can comment on the current events and the state of the nation, etc. We know a lot, and the more we grow in the human life, the more we are taught to think for ourselves, "be ourselves", express ourselves, etc... but NO, I don't want this blog to be my expression, something "of me"....

But what would this blog express? Since it's a 30-day challenge with, "One Meaningful Thing I Did Today" - isn't it about ME? O Lord.... I want to learn to deny myself, put the Lord first, and allow Him to saturate me and permeate me to such an extent that my expression is actually His expression, my experience daily is experiencing Christ in my human life, and even my words would be words that convey Christ and not myself... I hope and pray that the reading of these articles would encourage everyone not to "wonder who this guy is" or "how bad a person he is", etc - but to cause you to love the Lord more and seek Him more! Which brings me to the topic today,

£2 for your smile, or simple ways to shepherd one another - One Meaningful Thing I Did Today

Nope, it's not me in the picture :)

Today the story is about someone that had a haircut! Finally, I went and had a haircut - I've been thinking to do that for a while now. But it's interesting what happened - I got into the hairdressing place and I asked how long will they still be open(since it was almost 6.20pm). The guy there said it was until 7pm, and then I went on and said, "OK, I'll just go and get some cash out, then come back and get a haircut". No, he said, just come in I'll give you a haircut and you can give me the money later. I have never met or seen this guy before, and he had no idea who I am, but he was OK to give me a haircut - counting on the fact that one day I will come and pay him back!

This warmed up my heart. I don't know how your day was, but sometimes things pile up on you, don't go the way you think they should go, you have to deal with an increasingly amount of stress or customer care, orders, etc... - no complaining, just that daily there's a thing called, "the wearing out tactics of the enemy"... And out of all the people in the world, this particular hairdresser, in his 40s, managed to make me smile :) I sat on the chair, found out he is from Kosovo (and I'm from Romania), he came here a very long time ago, etc. We had a nice conversation, he gave me a nice haircut, and since I had only £6 with me - and the fee was £8 - he said, Whenever you come by, just bring me the change, when you have time. This is where the "£2 for your smile" comes from :)

I was walking home and thanking the Lord for shepherding me in such a way, and I realized the second part of the title, "simple ways to shepherd one another". We think that in order to "shepherd the saints" or to "take care of others" we need to be trained, qualified, mature, etc. But all it takes is to be open to the Lord and cooperate with Him to meet others' needs even in a human way. Someone is hungry or thirsty, and you get him a drink / something to eat. You sense someone's need and then, in prayer before the Lord, you cooperate with the Lord to meet that need. And it's these little things, the small things, that not only "bring a smile on your face", but they also encourage you to go on with the Lord and in your Christian life.

A simple text message or an email to one of your contacts can encourage him / her. Just saying HI to someone who doesn't usually talk to you after the meeting, or "meeting someone half-way" by taking the first step to talk to someone after the meeting / after class - shepherds others! Take a young brother the Lord put on your heart out for dessert or visit someone at home with your companion - you "waste your time" on the saints to spend time with them, and you can gain the Lord! I was so surprised to find out how much my heart was warmed up after this person, by all outward means an unbeliever(but a loving father to his kids), shepherded me in this way.

This is something that the Lord Jesus does towards us - He meets us where we are, and He surprises us with these little gestures, these little things, through which He just shows us how much He loves us! Sometimes He may expose us and allow us to make a mistake, but when we return to Him He is so loving and forgiving! He who is forgiven much loves much - so we just love the Lord! At other times the Lord, through people or the environment or even the weather, just shepherds us and brings us on with Him. THIS ONE IS IN US, and as we are around people and around saints, we can also be in this way!

I am NOT good at this. I may be inclined towards, "Let's do this!", or, "help me do that", but what if I would really listen to someone and find out his real need + bring this to the Lord? The Lord is the most attentive One, being intimately and kindly interested in us and our needs. He in us can do it towards the young ones, towards our workmates, towards our fellow students, and towards our family members! Even giving a little attention to the smallest members of our families will make them happy. In the church life we need to minister Christ to one another - and we do this by learning to shepherd one another and care for one another to make others' heart happy in the Lord first...

Lord, we want to learn to care for others in simple ways and simple things - to warm up their heart and give them something of Christ in the Word for You to grow in them and have Your way! We don't know how, we may not be too available in our being for this, or we may not even be willing - but Lord, we give ourselves to You to be shepherded by You and for You to shepherd others through us!

Having KFC for the Lord with the saints - One Meaningful Thing I Did Today (30-day challenge)

2011-09-13T23:49:00.000+01:00

There we go again, fast-food on the blog and talk about fast food! It is NOT healthy to have KFC regularly, and it is NOT recommended to have it too often. Before I came to the UK I used to hold KFC to a very high standard, loving even the smell of it... It was a special time for me when I had KFC :) - but then I discovered so many other fast food places or even the wonderful Nando's, with the grilled chicken... yummy... :) And so from time to time I pay a visit to these "establishments" / places / fast food restaurants. But that's not the point of this story - rather, it is that I can be,

Having KFC for the Lord with the saints - One Meaningful Thing I Did Today

This article is NOT intended to promote KFC or any other fast food restaurant, as neither is it to promote Pepsi (but maybe I'll recommend the pure water to quench your thirst...). No. Sometimes as I am with the young ones - the students, the young people, the saints - we have some KFC together. Not regularly, of course. Most older saints, including the parents, don't recommend it - and neither do I. But since the young people like it, one of the ways we can shepherd them is to "take them out to KFC"(or McDonald's / Subway / other fast food places, if they prefer it), go have some ice cream or coffee together, etc.

What I recently experienced is that you can use a KFC place to have some fellowship with the saints. You can order something to eat, and sit down and have some fellowship. There is a particular brother I'm having fellowship with almost every Tuesday evening - right after my gym time, as he also finishes his work, we would meet and have one whole hour together right before the prayer meeting. We would have either KFC or McDonald's or something else short to eat, and then go through a book called, The God-Man Living. It was such a building up time and such a sweet time!

Of course, after a while, having KFC every week can become too much, so we would choose either another place to eat(since we needed to have dinner, right?) - but we would continue our fellowship. And this is how we got together for several months, having a weekly time of talking about our day, turning our heart to the Lord, having some KFC :) or something to eat / drink, then getting into either the Word of God or a spiritual book(like, the God-man living). It's not easy to set a regular time aside every week to meet with someone and enjoy the Lord, but once you have it, you will taste the Lord together and you will be built up with the other one in a very sweet way!

Can you believe that a coffee shop, a tea shop, or a fast food place like KFC can be a place where you can enjoy the Lord with the saints?

What we need to do - and what I want to continue to learn to do - is to take care of one another in a very human way, yet at the same time in a divine way. Divinely human - that's what we are, as believers in the Lord. We need to eat - so we go out and eat together; we need to spiritually feed and be built up, so we get into the truth together and pray together! Believe me, KFC or any other fast food / dessert place will become a different place once you get together with the saints there! I have experienced it so many times that it is very rare that I sit in a KFC or Nando's without the saints - it's uncomfortable to be there by myself!

Especially now that the university starts its schedule, and as school also is starting, we can use any opportunity we have to take care of one another, be built up together, and also spend time to know the saints. Starbucks or Costa Coffee (or any other coffee shop) are good places to get together, sit down, take care of some young ones or new ones, and read something together. It's so simple, so human, yet it can be filled with the divine presence once we exercise our spirit! Can you believe that? You can exercise your spirit when you have your tea at your favourite tea shop, or when you grab a Colonel's meal at KFC! Or, as they have new meals, you can get a Boneless Banquet or a Godfather meal :) - with another brother!

One more thing: when it comes to taking care of the saints and being built up together, the money we spend for this we actually give to the Lord for His purpose. You may invite a young brother(if you're a brother) out to eat some KFC(for example), and pay for his side - if you are before the Lord about this, you actually spend both your time and money on the Lord and His Body. You can give real value and meaning to your money by spending them on the Lord, the saints, the new ones, the young ones - His flock! What a privilege, to waste ourselves on Him!

Disclaimer: for the record and also for our conscience / good health, we need to do our best to eat healthy and drink healthy, even to take care of our body as of the temple of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes though, for the sake of others, unless it goes against our principles / conscience, we can "go along" with them and go out have some dinner somewhere - and the Lord will accompany us :) We are where we are, and we are not here to force others to eat what we eat or to stop them eating stuff... - but we are here to enjoy the Lord and bring others to enjoy Him more! Lord, have Your way in us!

We are Those Who Knock On Doors - One Meaningful Thing I did Today (30-day challenge)

2011-09-12T23:55:00.001+01:00

Busy day, Monday. At work we have a huge backlog from the weekend, while at the same time the responsibilities increase with requests, emails, issues, payments, calls... In a large company, I suppose, there's lots of boring and regular / routine stuff happening, but not in a medium size or a small company... or in a company that's continually developing, evolving, and being revolutionized by the internet sales and internet development! Anyways, enough about work ;) what I really enjoyed today and what touched me was the fact that,

Realizing that We are Those who Knock on Doors - One Meaningful Thing I Did Today

We had the brothers' meeting tonight and we enjoyed the fact that the Triune God didn't "talk to us from the heavens, trying to get us all perfect and holy that we may join Him up there", but rather God came to "knock on our door". The Triune God is the First One who went door-knocking by becoming a man, becoming what we are, coming to our door... that He may come in! In incarnation He came to us, right where we are, to be with us and knock on the door of our heart - not by forcing us or threatening us, but by loving us!

Even now after we received the Lord, He is still knocking on our door - He's at the door of our heart, wanting to come into every part of our heart and take over, make His home there in our heart(Eph. 3:16-18). When the Lord comes in, He makes His home in our heart and makes our heart His home. And then He starts re-decorating, re-arranging, and re-modelling everything in us because He wants to feel at home in us! That's why we are going through a process of transformation - so that we may be a suitable and delightful home for our Lord Jesus!

The result of the Lord making His home in our heart, as we open the doors to every part of our inner being, is that He makes us the same as He is! He is the One who comes to knock on our door - and we are made the same as He is! We are those who go to knock on people's doors - sometimes we do it physically by going out door-knocking to seek out the hungry and thirsty sinners, and other times we go to visit the saints and the new ones to bring God to them! This is so wonderful - we become Christ's duplication and reproduction!

I have never seen this before - the fact that the Triune God comes to us "door-knocking" and we go to people "door-knocking"! When we approach people on the street to ask them if they know the Lord Jesus, we start knocking at the door of their hearts. Actually, it is the Triune God in us knocking on the door of others' hearts through us. That's why the Lord Jesus said that we shouldn't worry what to say, because the heavenly Father will speak in us! All we need to do is present ourselves and give ourselves to the Lord - make ourselves available to Him!

So today the Lord sends us out two by two to go and preach the gospel, and the way we want to take is by knocking on doors! I have done this before together with the saints in several cities and even several countries, and it is a challenging and exciting thing to do - going out with the saints on the gospel by knocking on doors! Hallelujah, we can go out one with the Lord and one with one another in the Body of Christ, having the Triune God going in us and through us to visit people in their homes! ... - this is what I was impressed with the most, and something I'm praying for to see more - see what's on God's heart about door-knocking...

when the righteous do nothing, the evil men are thriving - One Meaningful Thing I Did Today (30-day challenge)

2011-09-11T23:52:00.001+01:00

I'm NOT trying to sound cheesy or poetic, but today there were some things that shocked me as I walked about through London. I started from Hyde Park and ended up - without me necessarily wanting this - at the American Embassy in London. Such a nice and sunny day today - a good day for people to put out their ideas at the Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. All kinds of ideas, some reading their thesis on some abstract matter, an older lady shouting out the gospel and warning people of the coming hell, a guy dressed in the USA flag colours preaching the gospel and arguing with people... - a typical day out at the Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park.

I came to the conclusion that the whole Marble Arch / Edgeware Road area in Central London is inhabited predominantly by Arab people, and the stores there are mostly with lebanese food, kebabs, etc. Many people visit that area, and sometimes we also eat out there. Today is the 10years remembrance of the 9/11/01, and all the news presented some nice documentaries, interviews, the president speaking, the ex-president speaking, etc. What I was shocked though as I was walking in this area of London is this principle,

One Meaningful Thing I Did Today - When the Righteous Men Do Nothing, the Evil Men Are Thriving

UK is a free country, you can demonstrate about anything, there's total freedom of speech. There have been more than 500K people out in the streets to demonstrate for some salary cuts / the rising of the students fees and NOTHING has been done(in the sense that the government didn't change anything). So today there was a Muslim Extremists demonstration of almost 60-100 people walking on the streets all the way until the US Embassy, with all kinds of slogans against Christians, against the USA, and against everyone! "Shariah for America", "Islam at war with America", "Islam will illuminate the world", "Jihad against Christian Extremists", "Ummah of Jihad", "Muslims will destroy the crusade", etc - carried by Muslim people(some of them wearing face masks).

I asked one of the policemen - yes, the police was protecting and guarding the protests, with cars and personnel - about it and he seemed OK with the fact that "we all have something to protest against these days, right?". I was wondering - WHERE are the British people, the ones who stand with the USA or maybe who commemorate these events? I made it all the way to the US Embassy and I was shocked again - the Islam extremists were very vocal and shouting, filming, chanting (almost 100 now), while the English Defence League (that's how they were called) gave up in max. 30mins and kind of dispersed around... Later I found out they were looking for trouble, and some of them were held to the wall and taken details of by the police later...

Anyways, what I realized is that in the UK there's so much freedom that everyone can protest or demonstrate for something, BUT when it comes to God or preaching the gospel, people would resist, reject, and not be happy about it. They would rather be OK with people who say it up front: "Muslims Will Destroy the Crusade" and "Islam will illuminate the world" - giving them all the rights to speak, but THERE IS NO ONE WHO STANDS FOR GOD! It's almost as the Bible says, There is No One Righteous - not even one! This doesn't mean that someone needs to get a group of radical Christians and start demonstrating... We clearly see that the reality behind the scene in the UK/Western World is that there's a strong lack of consecrated young men who stand for the Lord!

It's not that there are no Christians in this country - but you can almost say that "they do nothing" - there's no clear shining of God in them, there's no repelling of darkness in this country - and in the West European Countries. The enemy is OK with that - as long as the church doesn't pray in oneness for the Lord to bind the enemy and cast him out, the church can exist! Satan will bring about all kinds of pollution, confusion, religions, etc - to dilute the pure and clear Christianity. There's real confusion when it comes to "what is a Christian", but everyone knows exactly what a Muslim or a Buddhist is and what they intend to do.

This country - Great Britain, the United Kingdom - has sent out more missionaries in more "pagan countries" in the world than any other country! The gospel was preached by English missionaries like Hudson Taylor, the Cambridge Seven, David Livingstone, William Carey, George Muller, and hundreds of others - consecrated young ones who abandoned their future and went to foreign countries to preach the gospel and even die for the Lord. They were bright young men and women who had everything they wanted, but they were burning for the Lord, they were on fire for the gospel, and they were zealous with the zeal of God for the people to be saved. WHERE are this kind of people today? This is what I realized and I was praying as I was walking through London today,

Lord, Where are Your Young Men in England and In Western Europe, Your Consecrated Ones? Where is the generation that will bring You back?

I was almost crying when I was praying like this. I eventually found where the British people were - several thousands of them were standing for the whole day in a long queue / line to get into the BBC Radio Party in Hyde Park. What the people today want is entertainment, fun, pleasures - but WHERE are those who meet God's need? Before the Antichrist comes, the Lord needs to get a group of young ones who meet His need, some who stand for Him and enjoy Him for His return! Lord, where are these people today in England and in all the Western European Countries?

When the righteous men / the God-men do nothing, the evil men will thrive. I don't know what else to say. In these last days the love of many grows cold(Matt. 24:12), there are so many things in the world that people would give their life for(by working long hours to get them and then being usurped by them), but the Lord has a need - He needs His overcomers among the young ones today! Lord, make me an overcomer! If today - if right now - we don't live a consecrated life towards the Lord, we cannot lie to ourselves that we will do this when the Lord returns! The signs of His return are clear - the world history and the political scene can be changed by the Lord very quickly.... the only thing He is waiting for is the Dispensational Instrument - the young men who are consecrated to Him who know His heart and live a life according to His purpose!

Your people will offer themselves willingly In the day of Your warfare, In the splendor of their consecration. Your young men will be to You Like the dew from the womb of the dawn.... He will drink from the brook by the way; Therefore He will lift up His head. (Psa 110:3, 7)

It's time for the Lord to return and - more specifically - it's time for the Lord to return and bless the Western European countries with the gift of repentance and a burning love for the Lord. It's time to pray desperately for the situation in Europe - that the Lord would unveil and prepare many young ones - many Samuels and Daniels - who would be the firstfruits, the ripe ones, even the manchild who will defeat the enemy! They are not drugged with what the world has to offer to them, but they drink of the guileless milk of the Word(1 Pet. 2:2)! They give themselves to the Lord for His desire, to be His living testimony on the earth!

Lord, return to Europe! Before Antichrist comes, Lord, gain a dispensational instrument! Wake up a generation of young ones to return to You and be one with You! Lord, England! Lord, Scotland! O, Lord, Ireland! Lord Jesus, Germany! O, Lord, Switzerland! Lord, France! O, Lord, Italy! Lord Jesus, Spain! O, Lord, Portugal! Lord, what about Greece! Lord, Austria! Lord, Czeck Republic! Lord, Monaco / Luxembourg / Malta! Lord, Sweden! Lord Jesus, Norway! O, Lord, Holland! Lord, the Netherlands! Lord Jesus, Belgium! Lord, what about Denmark! O, Lord Jesus - Western Europe! Lord, Start With us! Make us those who meet Your need - the Nazarites!

outrageous: this is total disrespect! - One Meaningful Thing I Did Today (30-days challenge)

2011-09-10T22:38:00.000+01:00

I'm not talking about myself being disrespectful - even though I can't say I'm not(sometimes)... - but I'm talking about someone else being disrespectful. You would think that in a modern world people respect one another since there's so much propaganda about emancipation, feminism, equality in rights, no racism, no distinction between nationalities or races, no bullying, or even the principle of "no slaves and no masters". In the 21st century, with so many systems and policies in place - all of which are to help man relate to others in the best way possible - the people today are still very much inclined to be rather rude and disrespectful than polite and respectful. I'll tell you why and how in a bit via,

Outrageous: this is total disrespect! - One Meaningful Thing I Did Today

After I finished work today - yes, I do work half day on Saturday... - I was passing by an "open market", many of which are available all over London these days. You get fresh vegetables there, different kinds of cheeses, all types of foods (Carribean, Argentinian, continental European, Mediteranean, etc), all sorts of bread products and milk based products, etc. This one I was passing by was a small one, but there was something there that caught my attention - some nice vegetables!

Yes, I know you know I love Pepsi ;) and I need to cut it short - why not rather drink the pure water which can actually quench your thirst?!? - but it may surprise you that I also love vegetables! Probably because of the way I was brought up, I love having a salad on the side with almost anything - even when eating pizza, KFC, fish and chips(or any other fast-food/unhealthy dish), or a sandwich, bread with stuff, or any "second dish" in a meal. I love tomatoes, cucumbers, salad, radish, corn, cabbage, etc. I love both to buy them separately and make them in a salad AND the ones ready-made from the stores...

Anyways, to cut the story short, there was this lady who was selling nice vegetables, and I approached her to ask about the price, but she would not pay attention to me. She was engaged in a relatively meaningless conversation with another person who was selling some cheese,s and even though I tried to get her attention, she would not talk to me. I waited a bit, tried again - nothing. This is outrageous - I'm the customer, she's the seller, she traveled all the way here to sell her vegetables, and when I am interested to buy, she wouldn't talk to me! This is total disrespect...

The Customer is Always Right and the customer should always be served... - since I work in sales, I know this and, though I may not like it all the time, I apply this principle... So I went and took out some cash, calling on the name of the Lord to really touch Him within... You know, you can be offended or bothered by situations like these. Or if not, maybe they give you a bad taste, they disappoint you... I just called on the Lord's name, took out some cash, and returned to the lady - who now smilingly served me and was OK to sell me some vegetables :) [the story ended up well :) ]

I was thinking about this after it happened... so many little things can bother us or even offend us. What do we do then? Many people say, I'm FINE, It's Alright! - but something within feels uncomfortable, and there's a discontentment being built up over the days, months, and years... You never know how and why but out of the blue someone "explodes" and starts arguing with someone else. It's these little things, these little unconfessed and undealt with issues, that build up and eventually overflow from us.

The people in the world are bitter, disrespectful, not polite, and rude - because NO ONE is nice to one another! How can anyone be nice to others in a genuine way if he does not enjoy the Lord who is GOOD and can be the proper human being in us? Maybe some are nice outwardly, so "polite and respectful" - but when you get to talk to them to know them, there's nothing there, it's just a facade - the "British politeness" is very common especially in England (dah!). What about us though?

Lord, what about me? Am I a bitter, unpolite, and disrespectful person? O, Lord, is there bitterness being built up in me as I go on in life? Lord, what's my attitude towards other people?

One very important principle is that we as human beings and as believers in the Lord need to have a proper fear and respect towards God. If we fear God in our humanity, we will also respect others who are around us. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. The more we spend time with the Lord, the more He shines on us and exposes us, the more we both love Him and reverently fear Him. This preserves us and protects us from many evils that can happen to human beings - the proper fear and respect towards God safeguards us against the evil one.

So.... as a customer I may be RIGHT and I can try to prove my point, get the seller's attention, argue a bit, make a big case out of it... or just "sweep it under the rug" saying, It's all good... But I can also choose to turn to my spirit and call on the name of the Lord. I can open to Him and confess my situation and my feelings... - and then something happens. It's not just that "I will be OK", but my attitude towards that person will be a proper one, a kind attitude and a good demeanor. O, Lord.... save us more in these little things of our human life!

contacting God in our spirit and confessing our sins(college meeting) - One Meaningful Thing I Did Today (30-day challenge)

2011-09-09T23:57:00.001+01:00

Even though the university has not yet started in the UK - it starts on the 1st of October - today we had our first "monthly college meeting" with the students and A level saints + the burdened saints. So good to be together again and see the saints! It is so refreshing and revitalizing to meet with the saints at the end of the week, even on a Friday night. You may be tired, filled with all kinds of stuff, wearied, or even feeling wore out... but then you get yourself into the meeting and the next thing you know you praise the Lord and enjoy Him with the other God-men who "call on the name of the Lord out of a pure heart"(2 Tim. 2:22).

If it would be you, what would be the first thing you need to get into and emphasize, when it comes to "working for the Lord", "serving the Lord", "preaching the gospel", or even in doing your best to do something for the Lord? It may be some special skills or guide on how to speak to people, maybe some more Bible verses to memorize, some more Bible knowledge, some organizing of things, practical matters, organizing an event.... Well, we started today as Christians on the Campus - that's right, we are Christian Students at University :) - with getting into,

A Deeper Understanding of Prayer - Confessing our sins and Contacting God - One Meaningful Thing I Did Today

What is prayer? Is prayer just asking God for things or telling God to do things for us? Is prayer just bringing our problems to God? Is the real meaning of prayer being us talking to God and Him listening to us? Is prayer a one-way conversation where we talk to God about anything? Why is prayer so important? ... tonight we saw a deeper meaning of prayer - as brother Nee said,

Why do we work so much and pray so little when we can accomplish much more by our prayer than by our work?

Before we do anything for God, we need to pray! Our work needs to issue out of a life of prayer with the Lord. Instead of working much, we should pray much... but what is prayer? First of all, the real significance of prayer is to contact God in our spirit and to absorb God Himself! To pray is to contact God with our human spirit - since God is Spirit - and to absorb God(John 4:24). The first thing we need to know about prayer is that it is a matter of the spirit - our mingled spirit! When we want to pray, we just need to turn to our spirit! And that's where everything happens - in our spirit!

What we all notice is that whenever we turn to the Lord in our spirit, He shines on us and exposes us - we see how sinful we are, we see how much we live our life without the Lord, and we see how many things we do that displease Him. In the Lord's light in this way we can confess our sins - and the Lord is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from any unrighteousness(1 John 1:7-9). How can we pray to the Lord and absorb Him into us if we have guilt in our conscience - if our conscience accuses us of our sin? We need to break through - every morning we need to Confess Our Sins!

This is the first thing - we need to agree with the Lord's light when He shines on us! As human beings in rebellion against God and as sinners, we don't really like the Lord's light - we try to stay away from the light, from the Lord's shining, because it exposes us. But when we come to the Lord as we are, He shines on us and we can confess our sins! When we confess our sins, when we agree with what the Lord exposes, He forgives us, cleanses us, and He FORGETS about it! Praise the Lord, when it comes to "remembering our sins", God has "amnesia": He can't remember them anymore!

Confessing our sins is a matter we practice every day - so that we may have a clear conscience, a conscience void of offense. What we really want is to touch God and contact Him, to absorb Him and be infused with Him - and for this we deal with anything that's in the way! Once we touch God through prayer, through an intimate conversation with Him, we can receive His element into us! We then need to talk to Him - this is the real conversation with God! You can tell Him everything - He's your Friend, He's there to listen to you, to understand you thoroughly, and to comfort you.... And as we open to Him to "give Him our problems", He gives us more of Himself: He infuses us with His very element!

Praise the Lord - we can contact God in our spirit by simply confessing our sins and then conversing with Him! Sometimes in the morning or during the day we even need to tell the Lord, "Lord, make my heart happy in You! I'm NOT HAPPY, LORD!" - admit to it. We may put on a happy face, have a joke ready, something funny to say, but inside we're not happy. We need the Lord as JOY Himself to make this verse real to us "the joy of the Lord is my strength"(Neh. 8:10). The Lord will definitely listen to prayers like these,

Lord, make my heart happy in You, so that I may also make others' hearts happy in You! Lord, warm up my heart towards You that I may love You! I need You, Lord!

We just need to be open and genuine with the Lord. He knows us anyways - and He knows whether we try to cover up things or sugar-coat our prayer. We can't really lie to the Lord - even if we pass the "human lie-detector", the Lord knows our inner being, and He knows our heart. That's why we need to be honest with the Lord will bring about the Lord's blessing and His presence. The more honest you are with the Lord, the more honest and genuine you become as a human being.

And you know what? When you're honest with the Lord - just as when you're honest with your spouse or your best friend - He opens up His heart to you and tells you what's on His heart. How about that! All we do is agree with the Lord's light and open to Him, confessing our sins, touching Him, talking to Him, being in His presence... and He imparts His heart's desire into us! O, the prayers that we will pray then! Not just BOLD PRAYERS and COMMANDING PRAYERS, but even prayers that will move God's hand to accomplish His will! When we become one with the Lord in this way there's no limit to what the Lord can pray in us...

only the real water quenches my real thirst - One Meaningful Thing I Did Today(30-day challenge)

2011-09-08T23:55:00.003+01:00

The MOST difficult thing to do in life is to REGULARLY do something that you know it's good and you should do it. For instance, blogging ONCE a day, as a "30-day challenge", together with the Lord, is not easy at all! There's the job I have to attend to every day, there's other things I need to personally take care of, there's the gym, there's the saints, there's the home meetings, there's the further coordination for upcoming events, there's the skype calls and skype coordination and skype prayer... - and then I need to write something before midnight today! O Lord Jesus.... As I was saying in a tweet today, I am still looking to the Lord as to what should I share today..

I love Pepsi. I don't like Coke, but I love Pepsi - it is sweet, fizzy, bubbly ;) and nice. I prefer Pepsi to Coke. Yet neither are not too good for health - so I need to keep the volume of Pepsi down... But I realized one thing - even though Pepsi is a nice beverage, it doesn't really quench your thirst! It gives you the fizz, the hype, the push to do something, it tastes sweet, but when it comes down to it, Pepsi(and any other fizzy drink / natural drink) doesn't really quench the thirst... And this observation brings me to today's,

One Meaningful Thing I Did Today - Only the Real Water Quenches My Real Thirst

Especially after a 30mins run on the cross-trainer at the gym, with a heart level way too much over the limit, on level 8 of "difficulty", you get thirsty. Yes, you sweat, you "loose water", so you definitely need to get some water in. So many times I chose to drink something slightly different than water - I shall not name the beverage, since, as many know, I like "mixing" drinks :) - which may have tasted good and got me hooked on it, but it didn't quench my thirst. After today's run at the gym I chose to drink water - and even though I had it not in a large quantity, I was satisfied!

Water is really tasteless, colourless, it is not sweet, it is not "delicious", many times it is "stale" in the sense that it's not "fresh spring water"... It's not "exciting" to drink water, and water doesn't get you "hyped up". It's not very attractive(especially in the world today) to drink pure water. It's sometimes "boring" to drink water... that's why people choose to drink other things. [by all these things I'm not saying that there are not some people who love drinking water and love water, neither am I saying that there's something wrong with anything else but water. It's a principle I'm trying to put out and get to...]

It's the same with the Lord. Some people say, It's too simple and too "plain" to just call on the name of the Lord to be saved(Rom. 10:12) - maybe you need to do something difficult, you need to do some penance, you have to repent really really hard, to feel that you are very sorry, and even fast for a few days... and then the Lord will forgive you. The Bible says clearly that "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness"(1 John 1:9). It's as simple as agreeing with the Lord when He shines on you and exposes you,

Amen, Lord, I agree - I have sinned. Forgive me and wash me with Your precious blood. I trust in You and not in myself. Amen!

And you are cleansed! It is the same with touching the Lord and being in His presence - you don't need to do some strange things like "going to the mountains to be alone with God and feel His presence", or "retreating in the desert to be closer to God". You don't even need to do a lot of physical effort or psychological research / introspective look so that you might find and touch God - "Whoever draws near to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him"(Heb 11:6) + "For the same Lord is Lord of all and rich to all those who call on His name"(Rom. 10:13). It is as simple as calling on the name of the Lord,

O Lord Jesus!

and you touch Him! It is as simple and "plain" and "not exciting" and "not hyping you up" as opening your heart to the Lord - and you will get His presence! We are thirsty, just like the woman in John 4 - thirsty for "this water"(John 4:13). Whoever drinks of this water (career, money, golden futures, social ranking, good family, good husband or wife, good education, sports, etc - anything apart from God that we drink of and find delight in) will thirst again! But whoever drinks of the REAL Water - Christ Himself as the Spirit - he will by no means ever thirst again! I want this REAL WATER!

Today I realized that just as "I love drinking Pepsi thinking it will quench my thirst - but it doesn't!" I may tend to try to do other things than the simple practices of life (which need to be scheduled into my daily living) and I expect to be filled and satisfied, but I'm not! Only Christ satisfies, and only His way of redemption and salvation can bring us to drink of Him as the living water and be satisfied! Other waters - Christian Rock, Christian Hip-Hop, Christian music bands with all kinds of instruments, Christian drama, Christian pantomime, etc - all these "exciting things" outwardly really don't quench our thirst! Only the simple, pure, unadulterated, fine, nourishing, refreshing, renewing, healthy, flowing, and living Christ as the living water can actually quench our thirst!

No, Christian Rock music cannot quench my thirst! No, any R&B music or Pop Music cannot quench my deeper thirst! Not even classical music or jazz - no theater or movie, nothing of multimedia, no youtube movie... - nothing of the entertainment today can really really quench our thirst! No, a new gadget that comes out cannot satisfy my hunger! No human achievement and nothing physical or psychological really quenches the thirst in us! As simple and pure as it is, we need to drink of the Lord Jesus - as He said in John 7:37-39! At the end of a long feast, when supposedly the people were filled and satisfied, the Lord stood up and called all the ones who are thirsty to come to Him and drink! Just come to the Lord and drink!

Why drink of the "Pepsi" of the world when you can drink of the living "water" that Christ can offer you - and live, be refreshed, be renewed, grow in life, and be satisfied with the Lord - for real!?!

don't waste your time: schedule it! - One Meaningful Thing I Did Today (30-day challenge)

2011-09-07T23:48:00.003+01:00

Today we're in a race, and our opponent is TIME - we are in a race against time. From the time you get up in the morning until the time you go to bed, it's either wasting time or redeeming the time. We do or don't do so many things and some of the things we do or don't do are a complete waste of time. There's a saying that's very common in England especially among the young ones, I Can't Be Bothered! When it's time to do something, many times our attitude towards it is, I Can't Be Bothered! I'll do it later! Procrastinating... postponing... delaying... do it later or tomorrow...

I am also a failure at redeeming the time. Most of my prayers either at the end of the day or early in the morning are, Lord, forgive me for wasting my time! Forgive me for wasting Your time! I love You, Lord, and I thank You for Your patience - and everything You gave me... but Lord, save me today from wasting my time! Save me from wasting Your time! ... - time and time again I repent for this, for wasting time... This doesn't mean that I "do nothing" or "do meaningless things", but that there's so much time that I just waste! And this brings me to,

One Meaningful Thing I Did Today - Don't Waste Your Time: schedule it!

Let me put it this way: if you work with your boss in the same room, and he keeps an eye on you, or your manager checks in with you every once in a while... and then one day the manager is not in, would you still work / do the things you need to do in the same way, at the same speed, with the same diligence as if the manager were there? That's the question I asked myself yesterday, and today when my manager was not in, I had to put it in practice! That's why I was praying even more today, Lord, save me from wasting time today! I give my work day to You! Lord, keep me focused! Be my diligence!

Again I say, this doesn't mean that I just do nothing when the manager is not there, but there's a temptation to chill a bit, to take things easy, to slow things down, to postpone some things, to have extended breaks... - there's a side of us that we don't discover or know we have until we're put in a special situation! So today, after having a time with the Lord in the morning, I got to this conclusion - DON'T WASTE TIME - SCHEDULE IT! So many things to take care of, so many customers, so many issues, website, blogs, products, updates, calls, orders, etc... Touching the Lord in the morning and consecrating the whole day to Him really helps - He keeps you going at it and being diligent, you just "co-operate" with His inner operating!

It is the same with our spiritual life. I was listening to the latest podcast at AgeTurners.com, the one concerning Scheduling our Time(1), and brother Ricky was sharing about the same thing. We may be touched by the Lord in the meetings, in the Poland camp, at the Students Training, or at other conferences / trainings / summer or winter schools, etc. We may consecrate ourselves to the Lord, and the Lord may touch us concerning having a time with Him in the morning, reading the Bible, being in the middle of the church life, preaching the gospel, having a companion, etc. But then school / work comes - and the school is indeed upon us now, at least for those in the high school, and the university starts pretty soon also - where things pile up, other people / things / schedules / meetings / classes demand for our attention!

It's time to STOP WASTING OUR TIME and start SCHEDULING OUR TIME! A very practical way to practice the things that the Lord has touched us with - and at the same time a good way to do anything worthwhile which can become a good habit - is to schedule that time into our daily routine! If we don't schedule the life practices it happens the same as when we don't schedule a time to study for school! You don't schedule it, you waste your time and don't do it! So I enjoyed these practical points concerning Scheduling the Life Practices daily:

schedule a time early in the morning to spend with the Lord! Yes, we all want to spend time with the Lord, but SCHEDULE this time - the length of the time doesn't matter, the creating of the habit of touching Him first thing in the morning does! For this, you may need to go to bed a bit earlier so that you may have 5-10 time with the Lord in the morning!
Schedule a time to read the Word of God! Put into your daily schedule a slot when you just Read The Bible! Get on the schedule - see www.readhisword.com for more info - and even get a companion to check up on you and to pursue with! 1 chapter of the Old Testament and 1 chapter of the New Testament is not much - but the reading time needs to be scheduled.
Schedule a time for the gospel - if you can't go on the gospel weekly, at least pray with a companion for your friends and colleagues / workmates, and then set a time to speak to them! Don't leave it "when the Lord speaks to me and inspires me" - schedule a time to pray with your companion for your friends!
Schedule your church life - don't go only to the young people's meetings / student meetings and the Table Meeting(which are VERY important for us), but also schedule to go to the prayer meeting! What about a service meeting - where you can serve practically with the saints, or serve with the younger ones / the children! Schedule it at least once a month to do this.

Time goes by ANYWAYS, so why not make use of it and redeeming it(Eph. 5:12) - by practically Scheduling our time?!? Don't "overschedule" by putting all these into your daily routine and then giving up after the first week. But pray and fellowship with the Lord about all these, and schedule them one by one! Start with the morning time, then the daily reading of the Word, then the gospel time, then the church life... If we schedule the life practices with the Lord and we fellowship with our companions, this will eventually have a beneficial impact on our studies, our work life, our relationships, etc.

.... So even at work, when my boss is not around, I can still schedule the things I need to do, the main items I need to take care of, etc(it works, and it's effective!). And then after work / school / uni - don't just "let it be how it goes", don't just "chill", but slot in the reading of the Bible, the reading of the ministry, spiritual books, the exercise, meeting with the saints, spending time with the Lord, taking care of your finances, cleaning, sports, etc. Even writing on the blog - for the Lord and with the Lord - can be a "life practice". I need to learn to redeem the time - by scheduling it! Lord, save me from wasting my time and Your time!

Praying My Problems Away - Glorious Freedom! - One Meaningful Thing I Did Today (30-day challenge)

2011-09-06T23:47:00.000+01:00

What a busy day today! The whole day at work was filled with emails, quotes, orders, calls, payments, paperwork, online stuff, twitter, facebook, people, customer care, prices, updates, issues, quickly do that, help me with this, pick up that phone, send this email, check up on this payment, delete this or that, disable that product, etc... And it was good! I mean, I like it being busy! It always keep the blood pumping, you don't have time to get bored, you even find fun things to do or talk about! It may sound crazy, but among the busy-ness you may have some nice conversations, have a laugh, do some helping of one another, etc. Of course, you guessed it right, this can happen mainly in a small-size company, where everyone needs to know how to do everything! :)

But after work and during work, whenever you're alone or when you're exposed, there's this particular PROBLEM which is obvious to everyone else around you but not to you! I'm not talking about necessarily a BIG problem, a HUGE issue, or a HUMONGOUS thing - there's something particular about you, a need or a problem, an issue, that just bothers you or others! You try to think about it from this angle or that angle, try to solve it, ask for advice and people are kind and help you out of the goodness of their heart, and... still, the problem remains. Believe me - we will ALWAYS have problems and be problems: human beings never solve problems entirely; rather, when one problem is "seemingly solved", other 10 come up right away! This brings me to this,

One Meaningful Thing I Did Today - Praying My Problems Away: Glorious Freedom!

This post is not about "self-help" or "how to solve all the problems"; it's not about solutions in relationships or how to make a lot of money ;) - no, it's just my experience today with this particular problem that was bothering me. You can try your best to guess it - it doesn't matter what the problem / the need was; what matters is what happened (at least today). You know, you can even ask older ones with more maturity and experience, even some with professional qualifications, to help you with your problem. And it may get solved temporarily - but more than other 10 problems will come up! You meet one need and you're happy - but 10 more needs come up!

Today I discovered - or I should say, re-discovered - the key to freedom from problems: PRAYER! Yes, we need to pray to the Lord - especially pray over His word, who has the power to "discern between spirit and the soul"(Heb. 4:12) - and especially pray with a companion! We need companions, we need saints that we run to when we are happy or not so happy - just to open up, fellowship, and especially to pray! The best companion you can have is one who leads you to pray with him! Why do we try to do so much and really accomplish so little, when we can accomplish much more through our prayer than through our working!?! [adaptation from Watchman Nee] The best way to deal with the problems or to try to figure out how to meet the need is to pray.

I had this privilege both at lunch time(remember? Redeeming the lunch break time...) and after the prayer meeting (remember? The most meaningful thing on a Tuesday Night is the prayer meeting!) to pray with a companion and get mingled with the Triune God! Don't pray "for the problem" - focus mainly on your spirit which is mingled with the divine Spirit! Pray over the Word of God! Pray for God's economy to be accomplished! Pray for God's purpose to be fulfilled! Pray for the building up of His Body! Even pray for other saints, other people, the young ones, the church life, the Lord's work, the Lord's recovery! When you pray for God's interest, God's purpose - just like Daniel prayed 3 times a day towards God's city & God's house - God will meet His need and He will also take care of your need!

When you pray with a companion and open up, there's a RELEASE within! The problems will never go away and the need will always be there - but the burden of it, the weight of it, can crush you down and bring you to desperation and disappointment! The best way to deal with it is to ENJOY THE LORD with your companion, praying over the Word of God, which is the sword of the Spirit(Eph. 6:17)! This Word of God will kill the enemy in the air and the enemy in you, and you will be released from Satan's usurpation! WHAT A RELEASE the Savior gave me - Christ indeed has set me free! What a freedom, to "pray your problems away" with a companion!

Remember: before you get the answer, you get the Answer; before you get the things you asked for - you get the One! Before you get the object - you get the Person! Before you get the answer, you get the Lord! Problems are here to help you turn to the Lord and enjoy Him - He is the solution, He is the One who can release you, and He can solve your problems by giving you more of Him!(enjoy this wonderful song online) .... I just love Him so much more right now! Lord, I cast all my anxieties on You - I give them, I commit them, I throw them once for all! Lord, I throw my whole life with all its cares on You - because it matters to You concerning me(1 Pet. 5:7)!!!