The Devotional author Richard J Foster wrote; "Real prayer is something we learn". Unfortunately, we do not find ourselves to be masters of prayer at the onset of our religious experience. For some prayer, as a vocation is a daunting one, and as a pastor, I have encountered so many people that find it hard to pray. Usually, we do not have time to sit at the feet of a devotional master of prayer and [...]
Do you really believe what you say and think you believe, and how can you know? The answer may at first brush appear obvious — “of course I believe what I say and think I do,” you might say. If you didn’t, after all, why would you be spending so much time engaged in the intellectual defense of it? This raises an interesting question: Can you believe that you believe something which you do not [...]
"Easy-believism" is one of "Easy Christianity's" popular teachings. Like other false teachings "Easy-believism" is a perversion of truth. The Bible teaches--as Martin Luther and the Reformation proclaimed--that we are made right with God by faith in Christ alone. We grant that salvation is by faith alone. The question is easy-faith or biblical faith! Thanks to Dr Macarthur, we now know the answer to that question. The reason easy believism is so eminent in our Churches [...]
As a Pastor of a multicultural Church in Johannesburg South Africa, I have often encountered people in and outside of the Church that simply declares their disillusionment with the Church and ultimately God. In the few years of being in full time Pastoral Ministry I have recognized five reasons people seem to lose their "sense of wonder". Now, this is not just a disappointment with the establishment but rather a deep-rooted experience of "lostness". [...]
(Average read: 3 Minutes). It was our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that made a profound statement in Luke 12:14 when he said: “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed”. Recently a well-known preacher announced that God told Him to claim a new Learjet that he desired. Upon criticism and a hostile backlash from secular media, he calmly asserted that it is God's will for him to be blessed and expect more. In [...]
In his book “Jesus in the Margins: Finding God in the Places” Rick McKinley writes that “Jesus is our ultimate model for finding identity, acceptance, and legitimacy from the Father. As we pull back the curtain on His life, we discover that Jesus knows what it’s like to be marginalized. He understands how it feels to have society shove you to the side, to not really be accepted, and in the end to be totally [...]
“O Lord, you know how busy I must be this day. If I forget you, please do not forget me”. - General Lord Astley. ”A single grateful thought raised to heaven is the most perfect prayer”. - Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Only God can move mountains. But faith and prayer move God. - E.M. Bounds A man prayed, and at first he thought that prayer was talking. But he became more and more quiet and until [...]
It was Elizabeth Barrett Browning that wrote, “Earth’s crammed with Heaven, and every common bush aflame with God; But only he who sees takes off his shoes, the rest sit ‘round and pluck blackberries.” Charles Caleb Cotton (English Poet) wrote “He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a very long head or a very short creed.” Even Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote “All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for [...]
Recently I was greatly challenged by a young couple who were exploring alternative means to find a higher reality of God. In our dialogue, the overwhelming ache I felt for this couple was that they truly desired a legitimate realization of god, and as a result, they explored other tenets or streams. Hanna Rosin writes about such people and says “people write their own bible. They fashion their own God then talk incessantly about him. [...]
Every religion, philosophy, or worldview makes truth-claims. Whether you turn to a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Christian, a pagan, or even a secular humanist atheist, he or she will attempt to offer truth-claims or explanations for our experience of the world and our experience of ourselves. And while there certainly is some common ground of belief shared by all worldviews, there are also some pretty significant disagreements on what is claimed to be [...]
