All posts tagged ‘reflection’:

Cast Your Cares on Him. He Cares for You.

One of the biggest problems before the Christian faith today is that all Christians claim they believe in God, but not all of them live according to their own claims. In other words, many of us daily call ourselves Christians, but far too many of us don’t live like Christians.

Let’s look at the relationship between a child and his or her parents as an analogue of ours with God. When a child truly trusts his or her parents, he or she waits patiently and faith till their promises come true. When mummy and daddy promise their son a new bicycle he doesn’t immediately run out, seeking for ways to buy it himself earlier than it’s promised to him. Where there is trust in a relationship between two sides, there is also patience and faith.

Between many believers and God, however, the trust is little… so, naturally, many Christians quickly run out of patience and lose faith. God, on the other hand, doesn’t cease caring for us, but how is it possible to feel Him caring if all the time we’re trying to solve our problems on our own and pay more attention to them than we do to God? read more

Feelin’ All Too Well in Here…

The preacher finished his sermon and before closing the service asked the people before him “Do you want to be with Jesus right now? – Raise your hand if you are.” The multitude raise their hands, except for one man at the back row. The preacher was slightly concerned, so he decided he’d repeat the question. The result was the same. Odd, he thought, maybe the man didn’t hear the question. So he asked a third time, even louder – Do you want to be with Jesus right now? That didn’t do it either.

So after the service was finished he struggled through the crowd to find the man who didn’t raise his hand and ask him what was stopping him from wanting to be with Jesus. When he finally asked, the reply was “Oh, I do want to be with Jesus! But I don’t want to go there right now, I quite like it out here.”

It’s an example I recently heard in a sermon and it bewildered me. So I took a note of it in my mind and gave it some further thought in the days after that. Today, as I think about it again it scares me – because it’s so true. read more

An Old Hymn Rediscovered

There is only a handful of hymns that I can say really speak to me with their lyrics… Just a few days ago Petra and I bought ourselves a compilation of Integrity Music – iWorship 24/7 – it’s a local Dutch edition, from what I read on the cover.

Anyways, it features a song called My Savior My God by Aaron Shust. It captured me from the first time I heard it, so I decided I’d investigate on the lyrics… It turns out it’s basically an old hymn with the chorus added to it and apparently one verse changed. More about the story of this new song and the complete lyrics of it you can read here: www.aaronshust.com.

Here’s the original lyrics of the hymn which is written by Dorothy Greenwell and first published way back in 1873 in England. read more

Not By Faith, But By Sight

“Jesus told him, Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29, NIV).

This verse is a part of a passage from the Gospel according to John in which Jesus teaches a lesson on faith to one of his 12 chosen disciples. Although the described event took place newarly 2000 years ago, Jesus’ answer is just as relevant to us today as it was back then to Thomas. Let us question ourselves sincerely – do we walk by faith or by sight? Do we pray by faith or by sight?

The truth is, for many Christians the saying “Gotta see to believe” has become a way of life. Don’t also skip the fact that the society around us encourages us to not trust anything or anyone, before we can touch and see first… And that goes on daily basis. Thus, slowly but steadily many forget about the true meaning of the word faith. This becomes an even greater problem when it comes to prayer. There is a real danger that each of us can lose faith if it is not being nurtured by a continual fellowship with God through His Word. One day you or I can wake up with an unsolvable problem in our lives and offended or even angry turn to God with the words: “Show me and I’ll believe that you have not abandoned me!” read more

So Let It Be… or Amen?

Almost each prayer ends with this word. Every Christian uses it at least several times per day. It sounds almost the same in a whole lot of languages, which otherwise have nothing in common… And yet, it seems that this is the most misused word among believers today – amen…

The word Amen has a Hebrew origin and after it has entered Greek through the first century Church, today it is a part for almost every language. Generally speaking, Amen means a strong agreement with something, or a strong affirmation. It can also be translated as “verily”, “truly”, “let it be” or “so let it be.” The use of this word as a part of God’s worship dates back to the times of the Old Testament. This is where today’s Christian use is inherited from – its use in the Hebrew synagogues. Just as back then, today we say Amen at the end of prayers as a symbol of our affirmation thereof, as well as after we have accepted a blessing from an elder or another person, even outside of the context of the church gathering.

For many Christians, however, this small word has lost much of its meaning due to its almost automated daily usage. The question we ought to ask ourselves now is “Do we even think about what we mean by saying Amen, or do we just do it because it’s become a habit?”

In his letters, through his own experience, apostle Paul reveals to us the importance of the correct understanding of the word. And in order to understand the power of this affirmation at the end of prayers we need to listen carefully to the preceding words. read more