Rhythm of Faith

1 Corinthians 11:24 24and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” Have you ever taken a close look at the Matzah bread that the Jews eat during their Passover meal? The bread, which is unleavened, is pierced with rows of little holes forming stripes. It is also slightly burnt. Many churches today use this bread for the Holy Communion. Do you know why the bread is pierced, striped and burnt? My friend, the bread that you hold in your hands when you partake of the Lord’s Supper speaks of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ when He bore our sins and sicknesses on the cross. Like the bread, He was pierced in His brow by the crown of thorns as well as in His hands and feet by the nails. He was also pierced in His side by a soldier’s spear. The prophet Isaiah says, “He was pierced for our transgressions…” (Isaiah 53:5, NIV) Like the bread, He was scourged on His back until His flesh was all ...

He said, “I was born with nothing, and I will die with nothing. The LORD gave, and now he has taken away. May his name be praised!” Job1.21 God's omnipresence and the manifestation of his presence are two different things. One is a fact; the other is often a feeling. God is always present, even when you are unaware of him, and his presence is too profound to be measured by mere emotion. Yes, he wants you to sense his presence, but he's more concerned that you trust him than that you feel him. Faith, not feelings, pleases God. The situations that will stretch your faith most will be those times when life falls apart and God is nowhere to be found. This happened to Job. On a single day he lost everything: his family, his business, his health, and everything he owned. Most discouraging - for thirty-seven chapters, God said nothing! How do you praise God when you don't understand what's happening in your life and God is silent? How do you stay connected in a cri...

Romans 8:32 32: He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Some Christians mistakenly believe that God gives and also takes away. At funerals, we sometimes hear the minister say, “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” I remember an occasion when I was looking at a baby who was suffering from cancer. I heard one of his family members comment, “You can’t be sure what God’s will is. He may or may not heal.” What that person meant was that although the Lord had given the parents this baby, He might later take the baby away from them. Job displayed this very same attitude when he received the news that he had lost his property and children. Thinking that God was the source of his problems and not knowing that it was actually Satan who had come against him, he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has take...

Luke 21:34-36.“Be careful not to let yourselves become occupied with too much feasting and drinking and with the worries of this life, or that Day may suddenly catch you like a trap. For it will come upon all people everywhere on earth. Be on watch and pray always that you will have the strength to go safely through all those things that will happen and to stand before the Son of Man.” Luke 23:4-6. "He said to them, "Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you will not fall into temptation."      All of these we have just read, are sending one direct message, Watch and Pray! While meditating upon this message, I kept on asking my self, how do keep watching till the end, I wouldn't want to start and then stop when I'm faced with certain difficulties, what characters/habits must I have to live a watchful and prayerful life? After studying and discussing with christians alike, here are a few tips to live by: *Study the word: study your bible, don't jus...

  I had a very interesting conversation with a friend, some time in the past and what he said struck me, he said "our good deeds on this earth elevates our heavenly status." At that time I asked myself "How did I not know this?" After thinking thoroughly I realised that I did know it but then I didn't hold on to it. This lead me to study my bible on "goodness" and I realised the following:         In Paul's letter to titus he told him (titus) that people must learn to spend time doing good in order to provide for real needs, they should not live useless lives. Also 2thessalonians 3:13 says you must not get tired of doing good.         In our society today, I must admit, it sometimes is difficult to do good. When doing good gets you into trouble or even endangers your life and that of your loved ones. We make comments like, "once beaten, twice shy! Never again!...." We decide never to help again, but, we must never forget that our God is a...

Romans 8:26 26: Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Once, when my father was hospitalized, I remember driving as fast as I could to the hospital to see him because his condition was deteriorating rapidly. I was just sobbing in my car on the way there. I didn’t know what to pray. So I just cried and prayed in tongues, groaning in my spirit. I believe that at that very low point, the Holy Spirit was helping me in my weaknesses — “For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered”. The events that soon unfolded in the hospital convinced me that just a groan or sigh will reach the throne of our Abba Father. I managed to reach the hospital just in time to clasp my father’s hand before he was wheeled in for surgery. The surgeons came...

FITNESS: AS VITAL AS OUR NEXT BREATH! BASIC SCRIPTURES: HEBREWS 5:12-14,TIMOTHY 4:7-11 Women spend billions of money on beauty each year Beauty products factories are getting richer, while people consume drugs worth billions of dollars annually just to keep fit! Yet, the principal element of glamour which is cheaper than a liptick, more powerful than a blow dryer and as vital to our wellbeing as your next breath is neglected daily. This neglected beauty and health product given freely by nature to man is exercise! Carrying out regular exercises, not only increase energy muscle tone , bone strength, cardiovascular endurance, ling capacity, flexibility, circulation and metabolism, exercise decreases body fat, blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol levels. Exercising and keeping fit can also reduce depression. It is an anti-depressant and improves mood and stimulates the production of endorphins in the brain, which gives feeling of wellbeing to you. The exercise will help ...

Matthew 15:27 27And she said, “ Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” Come as you are to the Lord with your need, and lean on His unfailing and unconditional love for you. You don’t have to pretend to be more than what you are to receive the blessing you need from God. You don’t have to pretend to be someone else to appear more deserving to receive from God. A Canaanite woman desperately seeking healing for her demon-possessed daughter came to Jesus. (Matthew 15:22–28) Knowing that He healed and did miracles among the Jews, she pretended to be a Jew, calling out, “O Lord, Son of David!” (Only the Jews addressed Jesus as the “Son of David”.) Jesus did not answer her. His silence made her drop her pretense and cry out, “Lord, help me!” Only when her pretenses had melted away did she see the grace of God extended to her. Jesus made a way for her to receive her miracle even though it was not yet time for the Gentiles to receive H...

When I stop to think about the fact that God, the Creator of the entire universe, actually humbled Himself to become like us and walk with us on the earth, it’s hard to even get my head around it. His humility is staggering. The Creator of everything that we see (and even the stuff that we have yet to see) came as a man, took on the limits of time and space, and willingly laid down His life so that we could live with Him forever. Amazing. His love is immeasurable. All at once I am aware that God cared enough about me that He would “walk in my shoes” so that I would know that He was acquainted with my real-life struggle and pain and joy. His sacrifice is complete. And when I realize that Jesus already knew the road that He would walk would end at the cross of Calvary—that He would be betrayed, beaten, ridiculed, humiliated and eventually crucified by those that He made, loved and had come to save—I realize my own need of the Savior. Jesus walked on earth so that those of us who w...