Tuesday 25 December 2012

How do I tell people about God but it not be awkward?


From my own experiences as well as from what others have said, once the Holy Spirit ("the Comforter" of John 14:1-4, 16) works through you, you become emboldened. This doesn't mean that you instantaneously become an amazing public speaker or someone who totally knows the Bible inside out and has all the answers, but you will find that there is no awkwardness when you have the confidence that the Holy Spirit gives you!
 
Here's the key to talking about God that makes it easy: tell people how God has worked in your life. You don’t have to be a Bible scholar, you don’t have to be some incredible public speaker, you don’t have to be perfect … you just have to be you and be able to relate how Jesus has worked in your life. No one can take that from you or tell you that you’re wrong. You don’t even have to have an amazing or extraordinary story!
 
God constantly used ordinary people throughout history and ordinary stories to relate to regular, ordinary people. It’s just a matter of telling someone how God changed you. The most powerful messages are sometimes the ones that are the most simple.

Monday 24 December 2012

How can I gain self-control?

This is a very good question and one that shows incredible maturity on your part! So let’s talk about self-control. Sometimes in T.R.A.C.K. I talk about the “18-inch Chasm.” 18-inches is about the average distance between the brain and the heart. I've told the class that there are a lot of people who know Jesus intellectually but don’t really have a relationship with Him. In fact, there are many people who can quote Scripture, who go to church, who pray or who may even lead a small group and who truly can explain the Gospels of Jesus Christ and relate the story of Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection but they’ve never put their faith and complete trust in Jesus.

They have never translated that intellectual knowledge into true belief. That’s why I call it a “chasm.” By definition a chasm is a “deep cleft in the ground or a yawning fissure in the earth’s surface.” Picture the Grand Canyon. That is a chasm.

So, when I call it the “18-inch Chasm,” basically, even though it’s physically only about 18-inches between your brain and your heart, the fact that you know something to be true but don’t really believe it in your heart makes it a HUGE gap.

In fact, Jesus even warns those who say they know Jesus but fail to do His will that He will reject them! (Matthew 7:21-23)

So, how do we gain self-control? First, you have to believe in your heart that Jesus is who He says He is. Next, you have to accept Him as your Lord and Savior. Then, guess what happens? You get this Helper inside of you called the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Third Person that God reveals Himself as and, when you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and make that decision to follow Him, God enters you as the Holy Spirit to help in those times of need.

Galatians 5:22 tells us that, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” So, you gain self-control through the Spirit of God that is in you! Now, here’s the key: look at the order the fruit is listed. Do you notice anything that sticks out?

Self-control is listed last. You can’t have self-control until you have love for Jesus first. The natural result of loving Jesus and knowing He loves you leads to joy and that joy of knowing Jesus loves you leads to peace. And once you are at peace, you become patient, which leads to kindness. When you are patient and kind, it leads to goodness. Your goodness will lead to faithfulness to Jesus and to others, which makes you gentle and humble. That gentleness eventually leads to self-control. You can’t try and jump to self-control without having the other fruit of the Spirit first. It’s impossible.

So, you have to know God, not just intellectually, but in your heart. More importantly, you have to love God with all your heart, your mind and your strength. Then, God, in His power, will indwell you with the Holy Spirit and you will gain self-control through the “Fruit of the Spirit.”

 

Sunday 2 December 2012

What does 666 mean and where does it come from?

Wow! That is an awesome question! The number “666” is only mentioned once in the Holy Bible and it is in the Book of Revelation in chapter 13, verses 16-18. It reads, “He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number. His number is 666.”

So, this number represents both the name of the Beast (Satan) and the number of his name. However, the origin of that number or what it signifies isn’t really known.

Many Bible scholars believe that the number “6” is man’s number. It is one number short of God’s number, which is “7”. The number “7” represents perfection. We fall short of God’s perfection so mankind is given the number “6”. Because God presents Himself to us as three persons – God, the Father; God, the Son; and God, the Holy Spirit – the Beast tries to imitate God and so we have the number 6-6-6.

Then, there are all sorts of other theories involving that number, which include using some sort of mathematical formula to determine who the Anti-Christ will be based on a secret code involving the letters of a person’s name. In fact, one group of people who believe this (they’re called numerologists) thought that if you make the letter A = 101, B = 102, C = 103 and so on until you get to Z = 126, the name Hitler equaled 666! Weird, huh? 

Still other numerologists believed that if you used the Hebrew alphabet, as opposed to the American alphabet, the name Nero, who was an evil Roman leader who persecuted Christians, also equals 666. 

The truth is we don’t really know where “666” originated from; we just know that it is the name of the beast or the number of his name and it’s based on man’s number.