Open Doors

The True History of Islam

2011-08-24T07:24:00.000-07:00

Islam, the most modern religious manifestation from Judeo-Christian root, has emerged as an Arabic version of Judaism, retelling the story of the revelation of divine truth to man through Abraham, from the point of view of his Arab descent, i.e. from his bastard son Ishmael. According to the Islamic religion, Muhammad is God’s last messenger and the greatest of the prophets.. In the Koran, the Muslims sacred scriptures, Abraham's spiritual connection to the Jews is denied, and Muhammad asserts that Abraham is the patriarch of Islam, but not of Judaism, because he "surrendered himself to Allah." (1) The Bible however, clearly states the opposite, i.e.; through the genealogy presented by Matthew; Jesus, the Messiah, is presented as a descendant of Isaac, the legitimate son of Abraham.

Although sharing the same basic principles of faith of Judaism, and having as one of its core foundations the claim of being the last revelation from God to man; and despite Muhammad’s claiming to be the "seal of the prophets and his teachings being touted as the only to bear a universal character; the ethos of Islam is not the same as of Judaism. The ultimate end of the Islamic religion is to teach Islam, or the worship and allegiance of man to a single God, in the form of compliance with his statutes, as described in the Qur’an and in the Sunnah, which for Muslims comment and clarify the teachings of the Prophet, in a similar way to the Hebrew Talmud, which is a rabbinic commentary of the Torah . The teachings of Allah (the Arabic word for God) are contained in the Qur'an or Koran (Qur'an means "recitation"). Muslims believe Muhammad received these teachings from Allah through the Angel Gabriel (Jibreel) through revelations that occurred between 610 and 632 CE. The Qur'an is considered to be sacred only in its original version, in Arabic, although it has already been translated into multiple languages.
Islam acknowledges the legitimacy of the Hebrew Torah, although claiming that the loss of its original manuscripts has generated many distortions in the interpretation of its contents. The Christian New Testament, however is not recognized as legitimate spiritual Scriptural source because, according to Islamic scholars, the manuscripts in which their texts were based and the source of its testimonies are not reliable. According to Islam, the Qur'an alone would be the true foundation of the new Covenant between God and man; for having been revealed to a single Prophet, by being based on the original texts and for being written in a living language.

Only a few people however know the real history of Islam. Many few know, for example, that Allah was originally the name for the God of the Moon, one of the several deities worshiped by Arabs before the birth of Muhammad, who later became the generic name of God in the cultures of the Middle East. The symbol of the Crescent Moon found in mosques’ minarets and on the flags of some Arab emirates at the beginning of the 20th century, is a remnant of the polytheistic beliefs that characterized the religious life of these peoples. (2)

When Muhammad was living with his uncle, head of the Hashemite clan, Mecca was a city-State in the desert, a large commercial and religious center. Muhammad was sensitive to the frequent conflicts that occurred between the tribes, an usual aspect of the nomadic culture of his people, and also bemoaned the intense polytheism and animism to which they were spiritually bound.

He also loathed the materialistic culture that dominated the community, and the way the poor, the orphans and the widows were excluded from society. Reputed for his wisdom and for his ability in arbitrating disputes among tribal leaders, he was then called Al-Ameen ("trusted") due to his sense of Justice, often revealed in these disputes.

Muhammad was part of a religious faction existing in Mecca which, inspired by the Judeo-Christian principles, had withdrawn from the pagan cults practiced there, calling themselves hunafa, a term derived from the Syriac hanephe, meaning Gentile or Pagan (3). The hunafa claimed to believe in the one God of Abraham.

Muhammad knew the history of the Jewish people, he also knew the God of Abraham and noticed how the revelation of God to the Jews had brought up a deep cohesion and a sense of ethnic unity among them. As well as among the Jews, religion was the most significant cultural trace of the life of the Arab tribes of that time. Muhammad thus saw that this would be the path to unification and social development of his people. However, he did not devise the possibility of adopting neither Judaism nor Christianity as an Arab nation’s religion, due to disagreements he had with the Jews and also due to doctrinal conflicts existing between these religions.

Muhammad then built, through the Koran, a cultural transposition of Judaism - and, to some extent, of Christianity as well - to his people, having as a primary goal to establish the worship of the one and only God, and to establish the cultural foundations for the emergence of an Arab nation. (3) Muhammad was therefore a great social leader, and although being illiterate, he was also a gifted poet. The Koran is indeed a magnificent religious poetic work of oral tradition, comparable to the Hindu epic Mahabharata. Muhammad certainly was inspired to create this work, but this inspiration could hardly be considered a divine revelation, primarily because the God to whom it refers, is not the same Biblical God.

In the beginning of his ministry, Muhammad himself was not sure about being a true prophet, neither about the source of his revelations. According to Daniel Shayesteh, Arab poets believed that only could be considered authentic poets those who were possessed by a jinn or djnn, a spiritual being, that compelled them to recite the verses they inspired. The moral nature of these spirits was not important, as long as they helped the tribe to grow and prosper. The spiritual inspiration of Muhammad is highly controversial, as testify the so-called "Satanic Verses" (53: 19-20) of the Qur'an, which exalted the pagan gods al-Lott, al-Uzza and Manat. Muhammad told later that these verses had been inspired by Satan, with the permission of Allah, in order to confuse the men of hardened heart. But later on Muhammad himself removed this revelation, according to him, following the command of Allah. (2)

Muhammad was persuaded as to the legitimacy and nobility of his ministry by Khadijah, his first wife, and by her uncle, Nofel. Khadijah, a prosperous merchant and poet, has always been the strongest support of Muhammad in his ministry, and he probably would not have made it without her.

It is impossible to tell however to what extent the Koran was spiritually inspired or a mere fruit of Muhammad’s personal convictions and of his Judeo-Christian influences. Proof of the influence of Judeo-Christian Scriptures in the production of the Koran, according to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, is the fact that his verses (Ayat), "Unlike the highly refined poetry of the pre-Islamic Arabs, presents in its structure rhymes and distinct rhythms, more similar to prophetic statements, marked by inspired discontinuities found typically in the Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity". (5)

Some Islamic rituals and Koran passages show also a strong influence of Zoroastrianism, a religion that Muhammad learned through a slave scholar called Salman Farsi. Muhammad was certainly inspired by the life of Zoroaster (Zarathustra) and in his struggle to eradicate polytheism from the culture of the people of ancient Central Asia. (2)

The religion founded by Muhammad, who preached Islam or humility and submission, was well accepted by much of the population of Mecca. Muhammad's leadership however was rejected by the majority of the Arab tribes and he was forced to leave the city, in 622 C.E. and flee to Yathrib, later called Medina. There he lived among Jews and Christians, which he called “The People of the Book”, a term used to designate non-Muslim adherents to faiths which have a revealed scripture called, in Arabic, Al-Kitab or "the Book" and "the Scripture". These adherents mentioned in the Koran are the Jews, Sabians (Arabians) and Christians.

In Medina he amassed a significant number of followers, who fought by his side. Around 627 C.E., Muhammad had united all Medina under Islam, with the defeat of his closer enemies. The Bedouins, after a period of battles and negotiations, became allies of Muhammad and accepted his religion. In 630 C.E., after several battles, Muhammad succeeds, in taking over Mecca and in destroying all the pagan idols still remaining there.

Due to the increasing disagreements with Jews, Muhammad changed the Muslims prayer direction from Jerusalem to Mecca and legitimized the war against non-Muslims, which led to the expulsion and extermination of all Jews in Medina. Soon after, Muhammad rejected also the Christian principles he had at first accepted. He denied Jesus being the son of God, his divinity and also the Christian concept of the Trinity. (6) Some verses of the Koran, that praised Christians and Jews above all other people (Q.2:62; Q.3:55) were later changed to reflect his new political stand, as in Q.9:5; Q.4:171 and Q.9:31.

By the time of his death in 632 C.E, Muhammad had already become the most powerful political and religious leader of the Arabian Peninsula, having managed to establish, after several battles, alliances with most nomadic tribes there. When converting to his doctrine, the faithful became known as Muslims, i.e. those who submit to God.

Islam has several requirements for salvation, but basically it is accepted that man is saved by his faith in Allah and by abiding to his teachings, as established in the Koran.

Sometimes seen as a separate branch of Islam, Sufism is considered a form of mysticism which seeks to achieve a direct communion with God through a series of practices that generally include outer asceticism, i.e.; the ascetic life in mosques and mystical practices such as meditation and dance. Sufism gained adherents among a number of Muslims as a reaction against the worldliness of the early Umayyad Caliphate (661-750 CE).
The God of Islam is a God of justice, but not a God of love. He is, "as close as the jugular" to man (Q.50: 16), but at the same time he is so distant that no man can personally relate to him. It writes down the fate of men and may or may not change their destiny, according to the works of each, so that no Muslim has assured of their salvation, including Muhammad.

When a Muslim meets Christ, however, and Jesus reveals to him the true nature of the Father, then his spiritual eyes and ears open up, because he comes to know the one and true God. The greatest difference between God and Allah is the Son, Jesus Christ, the perfect manifestation of God’s love, justice and grace. The Muslims, like all men, find in Christ their redemption and the certainty of their salvation.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES

1. Bard, Mitchell G. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict. 3rd Edition. NY: Alpha Books, 2005.

2. Shayesteh, Daniel. The Difference is The Son. Daniel Shayesteh, 2004.

3. Grypeou, Emmanouela. The Encounter of Eastern Christianity With Early Islam. Edited by Mark n. Swanson, David Thomas Emmanouela Grypeou. Brill Academic Publishers, 2006.

4. According to the website Answering Islam: "He [Muhammad] set himself therefore to transplant into their minds some of the "knowledge" of things religious which those who dwelt in more enlightened lands possessed. His own acquaintance with that "knowledge" was limited enough; and the opposition of the Meccans to his fundamental doctrine of Monotheism gave a denunciatory cast to the bulk of his deliverances there. But a certain amount of positive teaching he had acquired and promulgated in the Koran before he migrated to Medina. For this he had looked to those who had been Monotheists before him, i. e., to Jews and Christians. It is almost impossible to decide in particulars whether he drew upon Jewish or Christian sources. Nor does it greatly matter. For he does not in the early stages appear to have distinguished between them. All religion was for him revealed religion, and the content of the revelation given by the one God must be one. In any case, he had been in the habit of looking to previous Monotheists as the source of his knowledge, and he naturally assumed that they would agree with him (Who Were the Hanifs? – http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Bell/hanifs.htm)

5. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. "Qur'an." Encyclopædia Britannica Online. March 15, 2011. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/487666/Quran.

6. As Daniel Shayesteh shows in The Difference is the Son (pp. 132-136) the Koran is contradictory concerning the teachings about the divinity of Christ. This is due to the fact that Muhammad initially borrowed from some Christian principles and merged those principles, out of their original context, with other sources, arranging them in the Koran in order to differentiate his message from the traditional biblical text. However, the very logic of the Koran does not deny the divinity of Christ, as evidenced in verses Q.3 :45-47, Q.4: 171b; Q.19: 17, Q.21: 91. Nonetheless, some verses accuse Christians of affirming that God had a carnal relationship with Mary to generate Jesus (Q.4: 171c; Q.6: 101 and Q.112 :1-4), which is a distorted concept of the virginal conception. Muhammad admits the possibility of God having a son in verse Q.39:4 of the Koran, which contradicts his basic teaching that God is unknowable and also contradicts his condemning of this statement by Jews and Christians, in verse Q.9:30.

The Boldness of Christ

2011-03-08T03:56:00.000-08:00

"The high priest said to him, "I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ,the Son of God."
"Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. "But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."
Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, "He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy."

Mathew 26:63-65

When Jesus said He was the "way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6) and that no one comes to God except through him, he was consciously setting off a relentless worldwide battle.

Although Jesus, who was also called the Prince of Peace, said He came to the world so that we might have life, and when leaving this world to meet the Father He has given his followers His peace (John 14:27), He has also made it clear in Matthew 10:35-37 that, in order to actually there be peace and life in the world, it was necessary first that a distinction between the children of God and the children of the world was done:

“For I have come to turn 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'

"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Obviously Jesus was not here allowing His followers to declare a holy war against the infidels, or to set about any kind of persecution of their opponents. He said only that this distinction would happen naturally, through the freedom of choice of each man, because whoever does not take his cross and follow Him is not worthy of Him. (Matthew 10:38).

How is it possible however, in a world with such a cultural diversity, that one single religion can become so absolutely hegemonic among so many all others? If it is difficult to conceive of this hegemony within a single nation, how to expect that people with histories and cultures as essentially different from the history and culture of the Jewish people would be willing to recognize Christ as the one true Messiah, the Savior of the world? How to accept the fact that God has singled a historically insignificant nation, born from long struggles against the enemy nations around her, out of so many greater nations of her time, to be the cradle of the spiritual redemption of the world?

The idea of facing a single valid choice can be daunting and unsettling for most people in our time, raised in a culture which main feature is the multiplicity of choices. However, God revealed himself to mankind only once, through Israel, and that is why Christianity is the only true expression of this revelation. Christianity is the first and only true spiritual teaching, revealed by God to the world. God spoke to the world through men, who wrote down His redemptive message under the inspiration of His Spirit, and not inspired by any philosophical ideas or by any spiritual beings, as happened with the world's religions.

There are two kinds of faith: the unstable, sterile and subjective human faith, and the genuine faith that produces conversion of life and salvation, which is freely given by God to those who sincerely seek Him. This true faith is available to all who humble themselves before God, acknowledging His sovereignty and perfect will, and their total dependence on Him:

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.” (1 Peter 5:6)

Christianity has accomplished, over the centuries, the wondrous feat of becoming a universal religion, professed not only in Western countries, but in many countries of the East as well. Many would quickly attribute this hegemony initially to the political imposing of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire by Constantine and, later, by the Roman Catholic Church, at the height of its power. Although this is partly true, and unarguably many "conversions" to Christianity were due to mere political reasons (as in the case of Constantine himself), or to social motives, as still happens today, it is also undeniable that Jesus’ Gospel has produced, since the dawn of Christianity, many significant conversions, motivated by a genuine expression of faith.

Most people are typically familiar only with the dark ages of the Roman Catholic Church, but not with the benefits bequeathed by Christianity to Western civilization. Thomas E. Woods, who holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and his master’s, M. Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University, retrieves this memory in his How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (Regnery, 2005). Woods reminds us that Christianity was responsible not only for most of the ethical foundations that shaped Western civilization, but also for the first steps of science and of the academic teaching institutions, for the fundamental principles of law and for the first charitable institutions. The merit of the hegemony achieved by Christianity throughout history however, should not be credited to the efforts of the Catholic Church, whose methods were often questionable, but to the power of truth inherent in the Christian doctrine.

Most people discuss religion the same way they talk about philosophy; that is, based only on superficial knowledge. Few people take the time to deepen their knowledge of the many religions of the world and of the history of Christianity. The spiritual ignorance of man leads him to instinctively reject the idea of the Christian hegemony. Regardless of the ideological conflict caused by the Christian Gospel, which points out the natural human tendencies, produced by self-centeredness and hedonism as forces in outright opposition to spiritual salvation, man has always rejected as absurd the notion of the existence of an absolute truth. Thus, the Christian exclusivity, intrinsic to his own doctrine, is always regarded with distaste by the followers of other religions and also by those who claim not to profess any religion.

However, this antipathy is largely misplaced, since at no time a true Christian or Christian church claims to be himself the "bearer of truth", but that the gospel of Christ and all the Scriptures are the expression of the absolute truth concerning the spiritual life, as revealed by God to his prophets. Understanding this truth is an ongoing enlightenment process that every Christian undertakes in their spiritual walk. On announcing the Gospel, the Christian is not being narrow-minded, arrogant, intolerant, he is only accomplishing the so-called "great commission" given by Christ to His disciples, as written in the Gospels of Matthew (28:19), Luke (24:47) and Mark (16:15): "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." What might be questionable, therefore, is the way this evangelistic mission is carried out, but not evangelism itself.

Furthermore, the natural man, still in his spiritual immaturity, is unable to grasp the fullness of the nature of the biblical God, which from a humanistic and materialistic worldview appears to him like an unjust, arrogant, inconsistent, discriminatory and cruel God. Anyway, how could a God who claims to love the world to destroy his own creation, condemning people to eternal suffering and deny salvation to those who have not heard of Christ? Even the mere idea of a personal God sounds narrow-minded for most educated individuals, who prefer the complex notion of God as present in Eastern religions; as an abstract Being, absolutely inaccessible to human reason, a kind of energy that permeates all the creation.

According to those religions, Christ was just one of the many high spiritual masters who came to the world to teach men one single and same path of spiritual fulfillment. Well, this is absolutely not true. The path Jesus pointed out to men is essentially different from all other spiritual paths taught by the spiritual mentors of the religions of the world. Actually, Jesus did not teach a spiritual path, but he said He was himself the path and that no man could reach God unless he was led by Him (John 14:6). This means that even if one of the great spiritual masters had taught exactly the same teachings of Jesus, yet these teachings could not save a single one of his disciples. Only Jesus had the power not only to teach, to heal and to set the people free from the bondage of evil; but above all, the power to forgive sins and to save the broken, because only He is the Savior.
The human-centeredness and pride prevent those who abhor the one true God, revealed to man through Israel, of recognizing that it is because of the hardness of their heart that they have become unable of understand the nature of God and his truth, revealed to man through the Scriptures. The same human pride, which prevented the Jews from recognizing Christ as the so long awaited Messiah, has always been, after sin, the greatest barrier between man and God. As Paul said:

"And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." 2 Corinthians 4:3-4

Most people see Christianity through the facades of their churches, and judge it by what they see behind them. However, the thousands of existing Christian denominations are not the true expression of Christianity. The true Church of Christ on Earth is formed by his approved disciples, which are scattered amid those denominations, in the midst of false Christians. Even if a particular church were composed only of authentic Disciples of Christ, it would not be perfect. It would still have many flaws, for the simple fact that it would still be composed of human beings. The Christian is not sanctified in a single day. Just like the understanding of the message of God in Scripture, which is a continual learning, thus preventing any particular Christian denomination of claiming to have reached the full understanding of Truth; the sanctification of every Christian is also an ongoing process, which will only be completed in the spiritual world, when they can reach the full stature of Christ.

Christianity is an entirely different path in its essence, from the other spiritual paths shown by the religions of the world. There are three basic concepts in Christianity, among others, which make it a doctrine absolutely unique and distinct from all other spiritual doctrines: the principle of the spiritual fall of man, the principle of sin and the principle of one single life for every individual. These principles essentially contradict the teachings of other religions, that mankind is not irreparably doomed to spiritual death because of sin, but only separated from the Unity or from the Dao, to which they must return. Christianity also states, contrarily to the other doctrines, that every man lives a single life, after which comes the judgment of his works and his resurrection, and not an indeterminate cycle of existences, along which he would eventually evolve to perfection.

Christ says that only who believes in Him can be saved. This means that we can not, by our own means, to achieve our spiritual fulfillment, but only by God's grace through the vicarious sacrifice of Jesus, we receive salvation and take hold of the eternal life that only Him can give. This is a completely strange concept to all other religions, who claim that the individual must build, through his works and the devotion to their gods, the path of his own spiritual freedom. It is clear therefore that the common idea that all paths lead to God is absurd. Either is Christ who reconciles man with the Creator or are the world's religions that lead man to God. This is a realization that brings in a high existential, cultural and even political stress, and therefore the human ideology that rules the world prefers to ignore it, insisting on the isonomy of all religious creeds.

This ecumenical, universalistic and conciliatory attitude however, will not stand for long. Christ demands of every man to decide on a position with respect to their spiritual life. There are no uncompromising positions, the choice is clear: with or against Christ, as He said: "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters." (Matthew 12:30). To believe that Jesus is the only way to God means believing in the whole Bible. One cannot believe some things in it that we like but not in others, which we dislike. One cannot mutilate the Gospel as do many spiritual and ecumenical doctrines. Either we believe God is powerful enough to preserve the integrity of his message throughout the centuries, in spite of human interference, or we become atheists, agnostics or even worse, take false spiritual paths or still, as many do, make up our own God and our own customized religion.

The Kingdom of God has already come to the world and in the end times the angel of the Lord will harvest the fields and set apart the weeds and the wheat. The citizens of the Kingdom of God will reign with Christ, but the citizens of the world will perish by their own choice, with the Prince of this world.

2009-05-20T06:13:00.000-07:00

I have a great respect for pastor Francis Chan, from Cornerstone Church, at Simi Valley, California, for his bold, deep and whole view of the Gospel. I found this interesting post in his blog Cornerstone News and Updates (blog.cornerstonesimi.com) called THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF “ONE ANOTHERING” YOURSELF, posted on May 18th.

We would probably all say that we desire to honor God. Who would deny this? But in reality, we have deceived ourselves into thinking that we can actually live a life that honors God apart from being in continual relationships with the body of Christ.

Many would say that this is an overstatement. After all, every one of us has relationships. But I’m talking about something deeper than getting together with people for dinner once every few weeks. This level of interaction may be a blessing to us, but it simply does not fulfill what the Bible calls us to. Really, this type of interaction doesn’t give us anything more than a progress report. But if we were to develop deep, regular relationships with other people, then we would have opportunities to practice the “one anothers” of Scripture.

We run into this problem because we exalt independence.
As a culture we esteem independence—it has become one of our main measures of success. But our exaltation of independence actually hinders the body of Christ from functioning in the way that God desires.

Do you realize that it is impossible to live a life that honors God on your own? In order for us to fulfill the commands of Christ we must be in true relationship with other believers. We need to reject our culture’s exaltation of independence and finally humble ourselves and express our need for the body.

It comes down to this: you cannot “one another” yourself. Yet the
Bible is full of commands to do various things for one another. The inescapable solution to the dilemma is this: we need each other.
In order to be and do what God has called us to be and do, we must renounce individuality and embrace community.

You can start this process in two ways: (1) Identify someone who has a need and do what you can to help them out. (2) Identify some of your own needs or weaknesses and bring other people into the process. Our arrogance is the only complicating factor. When we actually begin doing this, we will find that this is exactly how we were mean to live.

Gospel for Asia

2007-04-01T12:26:00.000-07:00

Gospel for Asia is a mission organization involved in evangelism and church planting in the unreached regions of Asia. It's missionary vision relies on the belief that in some countries, specially in eastern countries where the cultural barrier is the strongest hindrance to the preaching of the Christian Gospel, local missionaries work are far more effective than of foreign Christian groups.

They focus their work on selecting, training and equipping native missionaries for long term missions at the scattered small villages of countries like India, China, Bangladesh, Nepal and others. Those men of God are supported by external donations, mostly from western countries and they are more effective in their work because they are more familiar with the language and culture and they live at the level of the people they serve.

It's amazing to see how God has so powerfully worked through those missionaries, in places never reached before, either because of the hostilities to alien religions and due to the cultural and language barriers commonly found by foreign Christian missionary groups. K.P. Yohanann, founder and president of the organization accounts for great achievements both in the social and spiritual fields, conquering the pagan and spiritually thirsty souls of those unreached regions for Christ.

GFA's website www.gfa.org offers detailed information on their work and on how one can contribute to this highly valuable endeavor. This is a wonderful opportunity for Christians worldwide help reaching those people for Christ.

Tales from the Crypt: Do We Have the Bones of Jesus? 2

2007-03-04T11:44:00.000-08:00

Kerby's follow up 2/28/07

My commentary was a brief (two-page) summary of some of the criticisms and concerns that many people surfaced in the first few hours after the announcement. Now that we have a few days of reflection on the claims by James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici, I think we can begin to provide an even more detailed perspective.

Here are some good commentaries and blogs posted by experts in the field as well some news articles that quote these people. Some of these experts have been able to see the Discovery Channel special "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" and thus can give even more detail than I was able to do when I first wrote my commentary on Monday, February 26. The first two links are for commentaries by Dr. Darrell Bock, Dallas Theological Seminary. He was on my radio program "Point of View" and provided some great insight. The next link is for a commentary by Ben Witherington, Asbury Theological Seminary. The following three are news articles quoting from experts:

Hollywood Hype: The Oscars and Jesus' Family Tomb, What do they share?
http://dev.bible.org/bock/node/106

No need to yell, only a challenge for some who need to step up and could:
http://dev.bible.org/bock/node/107

The Jesus Tomb? Titanic Talpiot tomb theory sunk from the start:
benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/02/jesus-tomb-titanic-talpiot-tomb-theory.html

'Jesus tomb' documentary ignores biblical & scientific evidence, logic, experts say
http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=25053

Ten reason why the Jesus tomb claim is bogus:
http://www.christiannewswire.com/index.php?module=releases&task=view&releaseID=2336

Remains of the Day: Scholars dismiss filmmakers' assertions that Jesus and his family were buried in Jerusalem:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/februaryweb-only/109-33.0.html

Quoted from:http://www.probe.org/commentaries/tales-from-the-crypt-do-we-have-the-bones-of-jesus.html

Tales from the Crypt: Do We Have the Bones of Jesus?

2007-03-04T10:53:00.001-08:00

The last week in February started out with an incredible announcement. James Cameron (director of the film “Titanic”) and Simcha Jacobovici announced that they have found the bones of Jesus! At their news conference, they promoted their Discovery Channel special “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” that will air on March 4^th and also promoted the book by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino entitled The Jesus Family Tomb: The Discovery, the Investigation, and the Evidence That Could Change History released by Harper-Collins.

We have known about this tomb since it was discovered in 1980. Back then, Israeli construction workers were digging the foundation for a new building in a Jerusalem suburb. Their digging revealed a cave with ten limestone ossuaries. Archeologists removed the limestone caskets for examination.

When they were able to decipher the names on the ten ossuaries, they found: Jesua, son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Mathew, Jofa and Judah, son of Jesua. At the time, one of Israel’s most prominent archeologists (Professor Amos Kloner) didn’t associate the crypt with Jesus. He rightly argued that the father of Jesus was a humble carpenter who couldn’t afford a luxury crypt for his family. Moreover, the names on the crypt were common Jewish names.

None of this has stopped Cameron and Jacobovici from promoting the tomb as the family tomb of Jesus. They claim to have evidence (through DNA tests, archeological evidence, and Biblical studies) to prove that the ten ossuaries belong to Jesus and his family. They also argue that Jesus and Mary Magdalene might have produced a son named Judah. However, a number of biblical scholars say this is really just an old story now being recycled in an effort to create a media phenomenon that will sell books and guarantee a large audience for the television special.

Quoted from: http://www.probe.org/commentaries/tales-from-the-crypt-do-we-have-the-bones-of-jesus.html

Reaching Out With the Word -- and Technology - washingtonpost.com

2007-02-04T11:53:00.001-08:00

"The culture has changed now," said the Rev. Deron Cloud, founder of the Soul Factory, a Forestville church, who now preaches to his 4,000-member flock via a satellite hookup from a new Soul Factory branch in Atlanta. He has raised $1 million and plans to open sites in North Carolina and Alabama this year.

"People used to talk on the telephone and meet in person, but now the culture is satisfied with e-mails and BlackBerries," Cloud said. "We as a congregation made a decision that if we are going to embrace people, we must leave the four walls of the church."

Nationwide, one in four megachurches, those with more than 2,000 worshipers, hold services at satellite locations, up from 5 percent in 2000. The number of megachurches with multiple sites is expected to double in the next few years, according to Scott Thumma, a professor of the sociology of religion at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research.

Reaching Out With the Word -- and Technology - washingtonpost.com.

World's Last Chance

2006-04-22T17:09:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting site I came across today:

http://www.worldslastchance.com/

It seems to have been published by the Adventists and reads in its first page:

A New World Order is About to Start: Are you ready for it?

* USA and papacy want it
* Its emergence will capture the world
* Predicted 2000 years ago
* How to avoid becoming its victim

Pope

"Pope John Paul II rang in the New Year on Thursday with a renewed call for...the creation of a new world order ." Jan. 2, 2004, The Christian Post
Bush

"It is a big idea: a new world order... only the United States has both the moral standing and means to back it up." Former President George Bush, State of Union address, Jan. 29, 1991

Our world will soon (as in years rather than decades), be facing a global crisis which will herald its end. Because people worldwide need to be prepared, we are taking this message across many countries, at a great expense and sacrifice.

To those who dare continue reading, World's Last Chance may sound preposterous, if not reckless, because you are naturally hoping for global peace and prosperity, and definitely not a universal crisis engulfing the world and ending it.

We have tried to envision your reaction and questionings and will begin this journey into the future by answering some of your questions as we share with you why this world is staring at its last chance!

Back to the Living Church - 4 - What is Missing

2006-04-15T12:52:00.000-07:00

TRUE CONVERSIONS

It is often heard, among the most frequent questions from Christians, one that’s related to the doubt as to whether somebody was really saved. Before any theological considerations, this question usually denotes that the person with this doubt doesn't have still a real communion with God.

People who are in effective communion with the Spirit of God present within them, whom they received when of his or her Christian conversion, don't have this kind of doubt, because they know exactly their real spiritual condition. This is because everyone who really has delivered oneself to God and started to walk in His ways, is spiritually born again and his psychology is transformed, since the Spirit of God now lives in his heart, as it was once promised to Ezekiel: " And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”. (Ez 36:27) and according to Paul's personal account: " I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”. (Gl 2:20).

The true Christian conversion is characterized, above all by this: by the real presence of God inside us and by our communion with Him. This communion is created out of the need that we feel of knowing him, of the genuine love that we feel for Him, which can be affected, but no destroyed, and of the constant need we have of his direction and of his help in our lives. Externally, the truthful Christian is known by his works, since we are not saved only to adore God but “unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” (Eph 2:10). The tree is known by its fruits and the fruits produced by those really saved, in other words, reintegrated to the communion with God, are the fruit of the Spirit, in other words: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness and faith (cf. Gl 5:22).

The doubt concerning the salvation condition, reflects a precarious communion with God, resulting from a fragile or shallow spirituality. The root of this problem is in the Christian conversion, which has been many times misunderstood and therefore, has led to a false attitude that hinders the true spiritual transformation. Although the process of the spiritual growth is an ongoing one, there is no doubt as for the immediate transformation operated in those who sincerely make the decision of following Christ in their lives. This attitude requires, however a pondered decision, fully aware of all its implications and it should be motivated by the sincere regret and for the firm determination of letting go of the egocentric attitudes of the past. Or, in the Lord's own words: "For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?"

A decision of such importance should not, therefore be taken under emotional impulse or the ignorance of the Gospel, which are however the most common situations. In the passion to "win souls for God", many Christian leaders present a false idea of an "easy" and fast salvation, that it is summed up into walking to the pulpit and declaring, either in loud or low voice, the acceptance of Jesus' as his or her savior. No wonder, therefore, the high number of people that leave the church and the Christian life, in the first months after their "conversion." It should not also cause surprise the number of those who, although staying in the church and living a seeming Christian life, turn out to be actually false Christians or, lukewarm Christians that, in the best guess, are just members of one more religion, which little or nothing has to do with the authentic Christianity.

Those fake Christians are leaven that can spoil the whole church they congregate with, and because of them there’s so much distrust, prejudice and reservation among Christians. Yet the way to disclose those people’s character is not the defensive attitude or the prejudice, but on the contrary, the search of a deeper communion among the members of the church. On knowing and letting be known to each other, the true fruits yielded by each person will be evidenced to one another, and through them will be disclosed each person's true character.

There’s still a second opportunity, offered by the church, in that people can better mature the decision of purposing a life change: the baptism. In case the baptism is preceded by an appropriate preparation, in terms of the explanation as for the actual meaning of the Christian life in the present and future life, there’s a good chance of happening a true Christian conversion. However, even so, it’s common true conversions to happen only after several years after the baptism. And sometimes they happen out of the church. The chief issue however is that, without a true conversion it’s impossible to follow Christ and embrace the Gospel, to live out the Christian life and to be a part of a living church, which is really the salt of the earth and that actually makes a difference.

It is pressing, therefore, that the church stops being but a fantasy, only lived inside the temples, and start being a daily reality lived at the homes, in the workplace and in the streets. Few churches offer the new converted the necessary support for the consolidation of his or her new life. In the most crucial moment of his or her life, the new converted receives in his or her heart the seed of the Gospel, but not the necessary care so that this seed is not stepped or stolen by the birds of the enemies of our souls, or perishes for lack of humidity or be suffocated by the cares of the world. This individual and personal help is only available in a really united church, engaged in the battle against the spiritual and material powers of this world. This essential help can only happen at an authentic church, through ministries of discipleship building, of domestic groups, of visiting groups that offer spiritual and material support to the newly converted.

PRIESTHOOD

Why God doesn’t raises up, in our time, men such as Paul? The question can seem pointless, but it’s essential for us to understand what Jesus expects from his church in this generation. In the origins of Christianity, it was necessary to plant the seed of the church and for that, there were necessary individuals invested of great power, boldness and personal authority, who were deeply committed, to the root of their souls, with this mission. For that reason were chosen the apostles, one by one, for God needed it to be that way, so He could accomplish his work, at that time.
Today, however, what He needs are no great men or great historical deeds, as were the ones of the apostles. What God wants from the church today is that it be spread, but also that it be strong and that it be authentic, through each one of their members. Jesus hopes each one of us cultivate and multiply a genuine and strong seed of the tree that He first planted.

What happens today is that most of those Christian sewers are only Christians within the churches and in the conviviality with others of the same faith. Few are those who live a true Christian life, giving the largest of the testimonies: the one of their own behavior in the day by day of the businesses, of the relationships with the friends, in the workplace and with their families. Many judge that to be a Christian is just to get a church member card, to obey a series of precepts, to dedicate enough time to prayer and to the church activities, and “to do good" to other people, whenever possible. Those "Christians" don't have inside a true love of God or a least communion with his Spirit. Unfortunately, they show either in their behavior, in their opinions or in their reactions, that they are but religious people.

The most pathetic, is that when those people try to speak about the Gospel to non-Christians, all they get is being labeled either "annoying" or "fanatic." They just repeat the same decorated clichés and they pass on neither conviction nor sincerity in what they say, therefore they can’t present any convincing fact that prove the reality of God in their lives. They are Christian religious and as such, they typify, before who hear them, just one more religion, among so many. Actually, they don't have any authority to speak on behalf of Jesus. This is not to mention those who are so shy and embarrassed about their faith, they usually get along with people in their whole life span without even their closest friends at least suspect of their "religion."

If we are to draw and wish to draw other people to Christ, we need before everything to go ourselves first until Him and to confess before him that we actually, didn't meet him yet, but that we really want to know him. It’s usual to wise people to carefully ponder, before making any important decision in their lives. This happens when we’re about to get married, when we plan to move to another place or when we acquire something of value. However, most of the so-called Christians, take the decision of "accepting Jesus" in their lives without bearing the least notion of the real meaning of this attitude. How can Christ's church spread and be strengthened with this kind of members composing its body?

We need to be aware of this and to set aside a time in our lives to rethink our Christian life and our relationship with God. The growth and the invigoration of the current church depends on each Christian individually, for this we’ve been named kings and priests, we were settled with his church upon unshaken rock, until we finally get to reign with Christ. Pastor David Wilkerson, commenting Matthew 25, stresses all that urgency.
Wilkerson says when that moment arrives; those who haven’t yet done so won't have time to develop the Christ's character in their soul. They won't have time to build up their spiritual resources. He will come during the sleep and they won't be prepared. They will scream in anguish: “I am empty, dry. I wasted all my time seeking foolish things. I wasted all my life in futile things; I’ve spoiled my whole life. The Lord it is coming, and I am not ready”.

When the bridegroom closes the door, the foolish virgins were left outside, while they clamored crying: "Lord, open the door! Let us in!” But the bridegroom answered: I don't know you. That is a frightening situation. On that moment, nothing else can be said. No additional resource can be made. The Lord will declare: "the door is closed."

Here is the proof, in Christ's own words, that only the truly saved Christian will be included in his communion with the church. All who have based their lives on sin in this world, all those who have wished his name but not his love, will be thrown out. (3)

It’s essential, for a true Christian life, a real encounter with Christ. Not to pray that an angel comes, in glorious light, to break in on our sleep one night and introduce us to him. He always comes to us, when we sincerely seek him, as He one day came to me, during worship, while I intoned praises to God and had my soul fully open, with a deep thirst of God.
This encounter is essential because demonstrates, plain and unarguably, that Christ really lives; that He’s not just a historical character of great spiritual nobility and sanctity. This gives us the notion how we are loved by Him, and that He’s really offering us his hand, his comfort, his freedom.
Although the basis of a true Christian life is in faith, the faith that comes through hearing and knowing the word of God, the growth of the Christian happens through the ongoing knowledge of God in his fullness, and in this sense, I believe that a personal encounter with God is essential as a part of this knowledge.

SANCTIFICATION

The ways of God are plain and perfect. To know them, however, we need to truly look for God, with all our being. Only then they are disclosed to us, in all their clarity and fullness. The human theology is just a reference to those paths, but it cannot lead us throughout them.

The Christian sanctification always escaped my understanding and I’ve always seen it as something out of my reach, while a human being, something almost unreachable, something like an idealization or a dream of God.

I meditated in Psalms 37, that says: “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.”. In my understanding, I loved God and had already given him my life and I didn't understand therefore why I didn't thrive in the path of sanctification.
However, when I really started to seek God, when all my soul desired to know him, then He taught me, step by step, to walk in the sublime, but true path to sanctification. God began to disclose to me this path when I heard certain time, in my church, a song from the Christian Harp hymnbook, called In Fervent Prayer, which deeply touched me, as if God spoke directly to me. That hymn says:

"In a fervent prayer, comes your heart In the presence of God open up! But you can only get what you’re asking When everything is laid upon the altar."

When everything is placed before the Lord, And when your whole being he controls, Only, then, you shall see the power the Lord has, When everything is laid upon the Altar.

This was the first step the Lord taught me this day, our being's total delivery in his Altar. It’s not a matter of leaving all our dreams on the altar of God, but of putting our own life, all our being into his hands. Says the hymn: " And when your whole being he controls ". This implicates a true delivery, to rush entirely into the river of eternal life, which flows from the throne of the Lord, and not just to walk in it, with water up to the ankles, or up to the hips, or even up to the neck.

Our life, however, is almost entirely taken by our jobs. To forget the burdens of the work, we look for joy in leisure activities. However, in that search, our heart is invaded by desires and by the lust and, without noticing, we go on occupying its interior with countless material and carnal idols, which come and go, along with our days. The pleasure of the passions and the idolatry exclude this way, for their own sake, the presence of God in our hearts.

To yield oneself to God, to give our life to the Lord, means to open our soul to him to be restored, to receive him and to recognize him as the Lord of our lives, to give him the throne in our heart and to recognize our total dependence on his grace. It means to seek in him the joy for our spirit and the comfort for our body.

This first step cost me a lot to take. How precious are our dreams, our more intimate desires, our daily preferences, our subtle addictions! But it’s a matter of choice, it’s always up to us to choose between God and the world, between the ego and the Spirit, and despite the philosophers deny it, this choice is real and it’s as fundamental as the choice between life and death.
The second step for sanctification is the consecration. God wants us to be jars of blessings. We cannot live a really sanctified life if God cannot dwell in us and produce fruits out of our bodies and of our minds. And He cannot dwell in us if our heart is divided and we resist his Spirit. But what does this comes down to, in practical terms, anyway?

"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven”
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father."

These words of Jesus are among the most neglected of the whole Gospel. A true abyss exists among hearing the teaching of God and putting it into practice. How difficult is to practice, in our daily life, these words... However it is essential that all those who have enthroned Christ in their heart, hear the Holly Ghost’s voice and obey him.

How much room in our heart and how much time, in our life, do we dedicate to God and to the world? From this balance, we can evaluate our degree of consecration to God. The best would be it was possible to dedicate a hundred percent of our time and of room in our heart to God. But we are still human, we need to work, we long to get married and to raise a family and that takes most of our lives. Yet, even of the remaining time, very little we set aside to adore and to serve God.

If we look up in our agenda, we’ll sadly check that little free time remains for God. For most maybe it is just those five or ten daily minutes of prayer in the morning and before going to bed. Others might go a little further, and make the daily Bible reading. What consecration can possibly be in this routine? Is that all one can really offer to God as the fruit of the new life He gave us? Is that all we have allowed his Grace to operate in us?

The work of the Lord is vast, but the inertia of our daily routines keeps us from doing more. The daily habits of TV and literature, the concerns with the work and the cares of the world keep us from serving God and of finding happiness and peace in his adoration. Jesus gave us the most wise life philosophy: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well”. However, we almost always do quite the opposite. We take good care of our interests and fret about tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Yet we hope that, at the end of our lives, we’ll be granted to enter the Kingdom of God. Why is it so difficult to live Jesus’ teachings? The truth is that a few of us Christian people are truly like good salt. We are not light for the world, but instead, we have conformed to the world.

When I was young, I had a strong distaste for all sort of routines. I didn't understand how God, the supreme Creator, could have damned his creation to a life of routine and mediocrity. Only later, after my conversion to Christianity, I understood that actually, much of the routine and mediocrity that saddle our lives is a reflex of the own human limitations and of people’s estrangement of the Creator. God is perennial and endless source of renewal, of innovation and intelligence. The forms of manifestation of the beauty and harmony of his creation are infinite and the human intelligence can badly evaluate them.

God gave us talents and talents the most various and has promised authority and power, for the ones who have faith in Christ, to accomplish everything he has accomplished and still more. However, though aware of that, we have conformed to the sad routine of our lives and to the mediocrity of our jobs. Our small world still spins around ourselves, around our living room, our workplace, our social club.

Jesus though, drives us sometimes to high sea, to the middle of the great waves, where we have to endure storms and the fury of the winds. Then, as a lightning, He appears from the darkness and calmly invites us to leave our boats, to abandon the precarious safety of our homes and take a step of daring and faith: He invites us to walk upon the waters. That is what to consecrate, essentially, is all about. To have the courage and boldness of answering the calling of God, to do the works He has prepared for us, from our mother's womb.

The third condition for our victory in the sanctification journey is fidelity. We gave our lives on the altar of God and we answered to his consecration call. But we need to be faithful to Him, every minute of our lives. This means to honor and glorify his name, above all things, above all human values and laws. It means to be upright, steady in faith and in the defense of justice and the Lord’s name. Many are the ones who were consecrated to the work of God, but have fallen. Some got to stand up again, but others have hopelessly strayed from the ways of the Lord. All of us are subject to this fall and the Scriptures say: "So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!" Faithfulness however is the ultimate trial to all who look forward to salvation and the eternal life, and all they must overcome it.

The more we move on and produce good works for God, the stronger become the temptations and trials we are to face, and tougher the struggle, to the point of many feel like they won’t bear it and are tempted to give up. However, in all these situations, the strength God gives us far outstrips the probations force and if we are truly committed, we’ll eventually win. Paul keeps being our reference of spiritual fidelity, along all of his Christian life and for this reason God was glorified through his life, his works last and its fruits are eternal.

Faithfulness to God is a fundamental condition for salvation and sanctification of all who have decided to follow Christ's steps, starting from the very moment they took that decision. The secret of succeeding in this career is but one: Perseverance. To persevere and to obey, even when we’re bent under the weight of our cross, persevere even when we vacillate in our faith, persevere even in the dark nights of the spiritual battles and in the storms we go through, to persevere even in the face of the temptations and the offenses, of the mocking and of the contempt of the ones who don't know God. Always persevere and never to give up.

The more faithful we are, the more the Lord reveals himself to us and infuses into us strength and courage, the more we persist in his ways, the more increases our communion with the Father and the more we are filled with his love, with his peace and with his protection. Paul was surely inebriated by the Spirit of God, and he enjoyed a deep communion with Him, when he wrote, in Romans, one of the most beautiful love pledges to God I ever read:

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

The Christian sanctification is the magnus opus of the spiritual life, however it is not, in any way, a result of our personal efforts, but it is a work of God, only accomplished by his grace and by the power of his Spirit. Those who set about this enterprise with firmness and earnest purposes show, increasingly in their lives, the sheer presence of God in their hearts. They become jars of blessings, more and more able to love and of generating through their works the fruit of the spirit and therefore, able to build and to support a living church.

TO LOVE AND TO SERVE

Kenneth Hagin wrote a book (2) about the need of living out the love of God, like says the Bible, in the apostles' letters, as in 1 Corinthians 13:3 and 1 John 4:8; as a basic parameter that evidences we are living in communion with God. To live out the love of God is an essential condition for us to be successful Christians and together be able to strengthen Jesus' true evangelical church. Obviously this is not easy. To love our neighbor and also our enemies is no grace we can just get from God. When we receive in us the Holly Ghost presence and we start to live according to the will of God, we receive also, through his grace, the forgiveness for our rotten past life and also the power to overcome sin. However, nor the flesh, nor the world nor the enemies of our souls will show mercy in this battle. But it’s with the sincere determination of never giving up this daily struggle against sin and looking forward to learn to love our neighbor, that we allow God to give us victory and allow his love finally to prevail in our spirit.

The Pentecostal Study Bible, an old evangelical publication, draws the following conclusion on a comment about Ephesians 4:14: “The truth of the Gospel, as presented in the NT, should be believed with charity, presented with charity and defended with a charity mood. This charity is driven firstly to Christ, afterwards to the church (v.15) and finally from one another". The order in that the commentator puts the objectives of the Christian devotion, demonstrates, although not intentionally, the mistaken order of values that guide the current evangelical church. The church, while an institution, is put above the individuals that compose it. Most certainly, the commentator referred to the church while spiritual entity and body of Christ, however, what we actually see is the cult to the denominational instituted church, as well as to its authority and the negligence in relation to the individuals that build it up.

Paul, however, in the verses 15 and 16, settled how we actually must foster the health and the growth of the true church:

"But speaking truth in love, we may grow up in all things into him, who is the head, even Christ; from whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.”

How shall we love Christ's church? What’s the whole made of if not of its parts? If we don't take care of each organ of the body, in an individual way, how to grant the health and the growth of the body as a whole?
We have finally come to the central point, which is: We evangelicals need to remember also of the second major commandment, and not just of the first one:

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. his is the great and first commandment. And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
We need at last to learn to know each other, to support each other and to help each other and for this we have to be in communion. Not like the children of the world get know each other and relate among them, but assuming our identity as children of God, children of a Father who really loves us, with whom we sealed a true and fundamental alliance to serve and to honor him with our lives.

It’s almost bizarre but there is more communion and friendship among religious and lay persons than among the evangelicals, in their churches. What is wrong? Shouldn’t it be exactly the opposite, being us a minority enduring a permanent war against the yoke of the world and against the spiritual ranks of the evil? The Christians should live together in a degree of exemplary communion, both in authenticity and depth. We should represent to the world an authentic community's model, united and solidary, through which could be proven that we are really loved by Christ and that we love him and serve him as well.

In time of war, the first social phenomenon to happen is the association of the oppressed minorities, forming communities for resistance and mutual help. We Christians, however, seem to move away from one another and consider the battle as a personal matter alone and not a collective mission of the Church. If in the struggle for the physical survival people mutually help each other, much more we should do the same while in the battle against the common enemies of our souls. Jesus put it clearly that whoever wants be great in his kingdom, should be the one who best serves his neighbor in this world. There’s of course a moment in that the battle is individual, consisting of tribulations and trials we must overcome only with the help of God. But even on those moments, the comfort and the mutual exhortation from our brothers and sisters in faith are of great help.
Throughout all the apostles’ letters to the ancient churches, there are three constant exhortations:

a) To be always alert against new “winds of doctrine” and against false masters
b) To struggle against sin and the works of flesh and to look forward to bring on the fruit of the Spirit in our lives
c) To love and to support each other, consoling, teaching, aiding and sharing the Christian life.

It’s time that we stop being spiritual children, stop playing Christians, and establish with Christ a real commitment to learn how to best love and serve each other.

There is no church without the Gospel. There is no Gospel without love. There is no love if it’s not whole.

Ponta Grossa, December 25th 2005

(1) Back from the Brink: A Leadership Special Report - Leadership Journal, Fall 2005
http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2005/004/8.24.html
(2) Love. The Way to Victory
(3) Based on the article: Christian In Name Only - By David Wilkerson March 29, 2004

Back to the Living Church - 3 - The Living Church

2006-04-15T12:44:00.000-07:00

WHOLE MISSIONS

How to do missions coherently with the Gospel?

It is certainly by learning from the best example which is always in Christ himself. Jesus was a missionary, and his methods should be the example for every church that practices the missionary work.

Jesus' method was integral. It consisted not just in teaching, correcting and exhorting, but also in healing, in freeing of the evil spiritual yoke and even in feeding, materially, when necessary.

Another good example of missionary work in the history of the Church is the one of the apostle Paul. He was the first apostle to organize and to practice what one could truly call a missionary work. Paul was not also limited to diffuse the Gospel and to plant churches, but he also rallied for the Jewish saints' material sustenance, in his birthplace. He also cured and freed the people, wherever he passed.

I believe, therefore this is the model to be followed, whatever are the reach or the resources available to the missionary enterprise in any Christian church. In Brazil, it can be mentioned as example of authentic missionary work the one of the Committee of National Missions of the Baptist Church, with their countless programs of social assistance, education and chemical dependents' recovery, together with the many evangelization projects.

Also the work of the World Missions Committee, from CBB, is an amazing example of true missionary work. The 97 missionaries sustained by the Brazilian Baptists in the African continent, comprising 87 Brazilian and 10 local workers, distributed among 12 countries, have developed in the year of 2005, projects of high social, educational and spiritual impact, that yielded (and keep on yielding) countless conversions to Christ. Among these projects stand out the Tent of Hope in Botswana, the Rainbow Center Machava in Maputo, Mozambique, the Preschool Education Program – PEPE - in Mozambique, the project God is Faithful in San Tome and Prince, the School in Bafata and the Jam Jamma radio project, both in Guinea-Bissau, among others.

At the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, USA, in a recent conference of NCF-Nurses Christian Fellowship, it was demonstrated the value of medical aid for the reach of people of the so-called third world for Christ. As example, stands out doctor Tracy Goen's account, who held a workshop and presented a plenary session on his work among the Fulani people, in Nigeria. He could tell how the Lord used the traditional medicine and the veterinary medicine to spiritually reach this nomadic people of Islamic majority, through the Gospel.

Another amazing example is the Food for the Starving organization, founded in 1971 by Dr. Larry Ward. It is an international Christian organization for assistance, which helps some of the poorest people of the planet in over 35 countries. Through programs of child development, agriculture support projects and others involving hygienic procedures and sanitary treatment of water, programs of health care and nutrition, education and support to small entrepreneurs, the organization aims to relieve both the material and the and spiritual hunger. It is backed by means of donations, intercessors' prayers, children's adoptive patronage and short-term missions for volunteers, together with the long-term main missionary group, the Hunger Corps.

Many are the ones who criticize the assistance activities to the needy social classes as a form of perpetuating a social order of government incompetence in supplying services and basic resources to the population. However, only from the Christian point of view we can understand and justify these activities. We know that the world lies in injustice and that is not possible to change this status only by means of political strategies or resources.

The promise of God is of an entirely new world, peaceful and full of justice, which will only be possible however upon the second coming of Christ. Until there, what we can and must do is pray and show love and compassion for our neighbors, through social assistance activities.

It’s a fact that the primitive church was a fully social assistant church, as showed in many biblical passages, such as in 1 Timothy 5:9. This was due to the fact that at that time, the government didn't take up this function of providing social welfare resources. However, it’s not because this role today has been largely assumed by the public authority - at least in thesis- that civil society should exempt itself from the responsibility for the care to the needy people. There are several non-government lay institutions today that work out this task. If the non-Christian civil portion of the society has been widely touched by the social injustice and by the hungry people and has engaged in so many material help programs, much more should to do so the living Church of Christ.

I am a member of a Baptist church in Belo Horizonte, that can be considered a living church, although no church can be considered perfect, since all of us are still imperfect, works in course. This church, however, with its over eighty ministries, most of them of social assistance character, with its whole missions program in India, its Growth Groups program which is their way of doing church in cells, home of one of the best national praise bands, which, however still performs for free in public squares, manifests what a living church can accomplish.

As in almost all Baptist churches, this church has among so many ministries one that I consider special, called the Hundredth Sheep. This work reveals a genuine concern of the church about their members and consists of trying to bring back to the conviviality of the church those members that, for some unknown reason, have strayed from it.

A CHURCH FOR THE YOUTHS

The largest difficulty claimed by the youths for their integration into the church has been the fact that they don't get to identify coherence among what is preached at those churches and what is effectively lived by the people.

The youths have, in certain aspects, a psychology very close of a child's. One cannot teach a youth a behavior that he or she cannot see proven in practice, what is, in fact, quite healthy. Therefore, some Evangelists have been adopting as strategy to draw the youths to the church, their involvement in community activities of mutual help, in collective efforts or task-forces to aid children with school problems, in the repair and construction of homes, or in the cleaning of community shared areas, among others.

When this kind of activity is carried out by humanitarian reasons alone, there is a material and a psychological profit for all those involved, but when these activities are associated to the Christian Gospel, they produce, furthermore, the main fruit that is the spiritual growth.

I can’t help weeping when I see the deplorable condition of most of our youths, entangled into addictions such as prostitution, drugs (whether socially accepted or not), violence and every sort of entertainments, morally and spiritually degrading. I know that this situation can’t be completely averted or curbed, for there will always exist those who are children of this world and, who therefore will die with the world for they belong here. However, many are the children of the Kingdom of God trapped in these abysses because they were not shown the light, and can’t find a way out.

A true living church, committed with evangelization, has as major goal, as did Jesus, to care primarily for the lost and misled ones and not in accommodating those who are already saved. It aims to looking for means of first introducing Christ to the youths, more susceptible as they are of being seduced or confused by the world than adults and elderly; supposedly endowed with more good sense and discernment. It aims altogether to looking for means of channeling the energy of these young ones for the construction of Kingdom of God and not for the glorification of material passions.

The most effective ways to materialize this is not just preaching them the doctrine and luring them to gospel music shows. If we want to create means so that the Spirit of God can produce true conversions, we cannot tell a youth we love God above all things and our neighbor as we love ourselves, if we don't show him or her how we effectively practice this in our lives. In other words, we cannot lead the youths to Christ if we are not truly Christians.

When Jesus answered to the rich young man who had asked him on what should he do in order to inherit the eternal life, He not just told him to obey the basic commandments, but also showed him how to show, in practice, that he was sincerely interested in the eternal life and that he loved God and his neighbor and that he was not just interested in getting the best of two worlds: "If thou wouldest be perfect, go, sell that which thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.." Confronted with this eminently practical choice, that young man unveiled then the true nature of his heart.

Jesus also showed us, in a practical way, how He will receive and acknowledge those who are really part of his church:

"Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

For I was hungry, and ye gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me.." (Mt 25:34-36)

FOR AN OPEN CHURCH

We need to build an open church, a field church, a church that’s really alive, active and effective in the accomplishment of the works that the Lord has prepared for her.

We need to break free of a church confined among four walls, prey to a religious routine of daily services, to a frenzied calendar of courses, seminars, festivities, what one could properly call a "religious activism" or a "churchism."

We need to go out and seed the virgin field, and harvest the planted field in a systematic and not just an eventual way, in search of the afflicted ones, of the lost ones, of those imprisoned, of the enslaved by the drugs and by the prostitution, in search of the ones that are undergoing trials and tribulations, in search of the ones who are pursued and oppressed for the love of Christ. We don't know exactly where our siblings in Christ are; therefore we cannot just indulge in sitting down at our churches and hope they will come to us.

If we serve a living God, we need to be also a living church, free from the legalisms and of the heavy loads of sacrifices imposed by ignorant pastors and leaders. Pastors and leaders who preach a grace of God that is according to the number of hours spent in prayer and fasting, according to the way of dressing and the hairdo styles, according to the value and the frequency of the monetary contributions laid upon the altar and who forget that, since the time of the Law, God is pleased less of sacrifices than of the obedience and of the honesty of purposes. Jesus reproached the Pharisees and the law masters about this error, according to Matthew: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone”. And also in Luke: “And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers”.

It’s undeniable the value of prayer inside the temples as well of the fasting, above all of the communitarian prayer, provided they are sincere and stem from a contrite heart. However, the biblical exhortation "pray without ceasing" means, before anything, keeping a constant communion with God in our day by day. It means also a continuous search of his presence, of his direction, of his help, of his forgiveness for our daily faults and a permanent thanksgiving for his gifts in our lives. Prayer, therefore, is a natural consequence of this communion with God. What use has the prayer and the praise of the ones who bow down for hours on end inside the temples, shout and sing in loud voice, when their heart is so far from God?

Christ has never instituted or ordered the institution of any organized church, ruled by rigid statutes or organizational hierarchies. His temple was the open field, the streets, the houses of the sinners and of the lost ones. His home was the home of the ones who received him with an open heart and in that way he instructed their apostles and disciples to act. That was also the way the church lived in its origins. Paul, who most spread the teachings of Jesus in the history of the church, has never promoted or encouraged the construction of mega temples or grandiose cathedrals, as we see today, temples that look more like fortresses, almost always closed, which became stronghold of a new religion and a place of doctrinaire formation and of social meetings.

Of all the letters Christ ordered to be written to the first Christian churches, found in the book of Revelation, the most grave was the one written to the church of the Laodiceans. That people had not proven to be true Christians, they were proud of their wealth but poor of God’s grace. Those people Christ considered to be “lukewarm” and told them he was about to throw them up his mouth.

The adoration to God requires Spirit and Truth and, therefore it is something far deeper than what is celebrated today in our church services, because He is sacred, good, just, beautiful and grandiose. The Lord doesn't live in temples, but in our hearts. The Lord is happiness, renewal, joy, grace and wisdom. Therefore, the Lord detests the vulgarity, the ignorance, the formalism, the monotony, the vanity and the spiritual coldness of our services. If “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”, there is freedom to adore the Lord, to glorify him with our lives and with our open heart, everyday and in every moment and everywhere.

We need more than ever to congregate, to be in communion with each other, to pray, to learn together, to celebrate the Supper, to glorify the Lord and to give him thanks, to raise adoration praises to Him, as our Father, but praises motivated by the warmth of the Spirit and not by the vanity of flesh. We need to share with joy our experiences and accounts of the manifestation of the presence of the Lord in our lives. But we need for this to be free of the routines and of the bonds imposed by authentic bureaucrats and merchants of faith, whose main objective is to glorify themselves and their own religious denominations. We need to learn to trust and to be guided by the Spirit of God and not by man. We need finally to wake up and become aware and assume our condition and our Christian identity, while individuals. But it is necessary to do all this in small groups, no larger than twenty or thirty members, to make it possible a direct contact among all participants and between the leader and each person of the group. Groups subordinated to the central authority of the church, but with autonomy enough to be effective and dynamic.

Today we live amid a host of more than 1.500 said Christian denominations, formally instituted and organized, whose main activities are to herd new proselytes, to prosper materially, to revile the other denominations and to defend their own doctrinaire principles. It’s not apparent, to any lay person who stares at this spiritual chaos that we believe in the same Sacred Scripture, neither in a unique God, upon which we base our spiritual life and drive our churches. What is missing for our churches to turn from cold and pointless institutions to the true church of Christ, the bride that will come to Him when of his coming, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and without blemish?

Back to the Living Church - 2 - Where Have We Stumbled?

2006-04-15T12:35:00.000-07:00

THE WHOLE CHRISTIANITY

One certain time, when I was still a newly converted, I was in a prayer meeting in my church, when we heard somebody calling outside. One of the members of the group went out to see and when he returned, he brought with him a beggar, who was asking for food.

To my surprise, instead of offering him some food, this brother preached to the starving man a long sermon, followed by a prayer and a fervent exhortation so that he converted of his evil ways and finally dismissed him, simply.

His commentary was that it was useless to help an infidel and that without converting; he would continue to beg at the door of the church. This scene shocked me, however, as a newcomer I rushed into a thorough exam of the Scriptures, to try to find the biblical foundation for those brothers' attitude.

I have to admit that until today I haven’t found such foundation. Downright to the opposite, what I found in the Gospel were exhortations of the very Lord Jesus, in the sense that we loved our neighbor, without any discrimination. For twice, after preaching to a crowd, Jesus didn't dismiss them simply, but He fed them all with abundance.

How to forget James 2:15-16: “If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?”

Therefore, I don't have faith in a Gospel made of words alone, but in a gospel made also of action and of solidarity. Action in the sense of being coherent with what one preaches in one’s own life, and solidarity in the sense of aiding and serving one’s neighbor. The Gospel is not just meant to the spirit, but also to the mind and the body and in that way, whoever preaches the Gospel of the Spirit, which is timeless, must also coherently offer help to the mind and to the body, which are temporary.

If God created and sees man as a whole - body, soul, mind and spirit – how to treat people as if they were just a soul or a spirit, in a partial way?

I do believe, therefore that repentance must be preached, above all, but also that, at the same time, our hand must not be shortened before the sinner's needs and much less before the saints’ needs. Whoever preaches the Gospel must introduce himself before everything as a servant of God, before heralding himself as minister or priest of the church. Would Jesus' example have been other?

I have faith in the preaching of the Gospel of the Truth, but also in the Gospel of action and of cooperation, because that’s what I have learned from Jesus' life, who fully lived up to his message, who looked for to heal people as a whole and not just to console the soul or to save the spirit.

ELITISM

Many Protestant and Evangelical churches today, are private property of the wealthy classes and of well-off men. Now, the house of God is not exclusive place of any particular social class or of church members alone, who meet there in pre-scheduled days and hours, as in a social club.

A while ago, in a catechism group in the church, one of the participants, a newcomer, lamented a fact that occurred with her husband, who had been kept from entering the church to seek her, for he had an urgent question to discuss with her, on the alleged reason of not being appropriately dressed. According to her, he was returning from his work and therefore he was dressed as a worker. This fact, turned out in one of the motives that took her to leave that church.

I am not pleading that we should admit in the pews every sort of beggars, prostitutes and junkies, sitting side by side with members of the church. I think though that the church should not close its doors to whomever knocks outside, asking for help and aid, what requires the creation and maintenance of specific ministries for this purpose. It is not about diminishing the church role to a simple matter of social or material care, but the church should be above all a safe haven, where the desperate can find the food, the comfort and the cure, so much for the body as for the soul. It’s just not enough to eventually set about regular voluntary groups that rally to preach the Gospel downtown and to pray for the beggars and prostitutes in the streets. The church needs to be open for the lost. Wasn’t for their rescue Christ came for?

It is necessary that precautions should be taken regarding some people who seek the church, on the pretext of getting aid. Some people have a hardened heart and are full of iniquity and they really don't seek the church with a worthy purpose. However, the excessive concern with this type of people has been transforming the church in a spiritual elite’s stronghold, totally divorced of its universal objective. When Paul preached that the Christian and the church should live separate from the world, certainly it was not exactly that what he had in mind.

In a small Baptist church I attended in Belo Horizonte, there was a ministry that was assigned of keeping the doors of the church open over lunch time. In the front gate, a plate was put, inviting the passing-by people to enter and hear the word of God. It was in one of those hours that I decided to go inside that church and soon after became a regular member.

From a 2005 statistics, it was found that 85 percent of the churches in the United States have lagging or declining attendance. That's approximately 340,000 churches. In other words, 340,000 churches needed a turnaround. Christianity Today magazine conducted a thorough study involving 31 of those churches that had witnessed a turnaround in attendance, finances, purpose, and/or spirit to participate.

At the end of this study, five churches were selected to present their testimony on how the changes took place. I was not surprised to check out that all the five congregations had taken the same road in order to find their way to be a living church. That road was, in all cases, one that led the church to meet the needs of their communities, to develop ministries of service providing spiritual, material and emotional support to the community around them. (1)

It’s becoming increasingly common the church-without-walls model. It’s an open church, not turned inwards, to its selected members, but outwards, to the community around it. One of the churches which has adopted that model, in Washington D.C., went so far as to call itself a street church, in other words, it doesn't possess a temple of its own. They meet at theaters, subway stops and wherever there is a considerable flow of people. The evangelistic crusades are held in public squares, bus stops and parking lots. With this, those God workers have been reaching people that live distant of God because of personal restrictions, prejudices or past frustrations related to the instituted churches. Jesus also preached in the temple, but most of his ministry was done in the streets, in the fields, close to those marginalized and to the lost.

One certain time, I witnessed in a Catholic denomination program on the TV, an account of a paralytic youth, who had converted to Catholicism. The history of this youth illustrates well and also exposes the central problem of the current Evangelicalism.

This young man suffered for not having anyone to aid him, for few things could he do by himself, besides disposing of very little resources. According to him, several religious groups approached him to offer help: Catholic, spiritualists and evangelical. Of these, the ones he least valued were the evangelicals, which, according to him, only offered prayers and biblical teaching, but they didn't dispose to aid him not even with his physical difficulties. Differently of the others, which besides the spiritual comfort, also had helped him both materially and with his basic needs.

The Evangelical and Protestant Christians, in general, show a tendency to avoid to dirty their hands with the marginalized and to get involved with the troubles of the homes in darkness. They prefer to intercede for them in prayer, in the comfort of their own homes and of their churches. Not that this is not necessary or that is not effective when done in earnest, but serving the neighbor involves much more than this. One of my mother's frequent complaints - she was a Catholic and later converted to a religion called Spiritism - before giving her life to Christ, was that the "believers", as she called them, were mostly lazy and totally contrary to the idea of disposing themselves for personal help, or of "putting the hands on the mass" to aid people. Of course she generalized, for the true Christian doesn't actually act like this, but that was the reality she saw around her.

During the time I served as volunteer to some public institutions, I noticed the colleagues´ natural preference for the day-cares. Few of them disposed to work at the slums, in the asylums and hospitals. However, it is dirt right in those places, where nobody likes to go, that live those who Jesus is looking for, those he wants us to help him to reach. During the time I served in slums, I could feel how strongly these people are in need of help and both material and spiritual orientation, and also the sheer dimension of their material, emotional and spiritual absolute poverty condition.

It is precisely in this life condition into which are buried the marginalized, the sick and the elderly, of physical, mental and emotional weakness, that Christ's calling can be heard in their hearts. It is of no surprise, therefore, that most of the Evangelical Christians come from this class of people. They convert to Jesus, not for being ignorant or careless, as many criticize, but above all because their soul is fully open for God.

In this sense, Evangelicalism has truly been accomplishing the work of God and has built itself as the true Christian church, because it is able to reach, through the word of God, Christ's true flock. However, it fails miserably in herding this flock.

CORPORATISM

We find today at the Evangelical and Protestant churches, a strong corporate structure, almost as rigid as that found at the Catholic Church. Obviously, it is necessary the existence of an administrative structure for the secular organization of the church and also for its spiritual direction.

However, that hierarchy and the way it’s constituted has been causing disputes and disagreements inside the churches and, more serious than this, it has been promoting a type of idolatry addressed to the figure of their more outstanding members, which happens, in some cases, to be similar to the Catholics’ cult to their ecclesiastical authorities and their miracle-maker saints.

The main point is that this hierarchical structure of organization of the Evangelical and Protestant churches, in general, has been building a corporative centeredness that turns them more concerned with their own preservation and their specific rules than with their main activity.

On behalf of a religious zeal of the integrity and fidelity of the doctrine adopted in the denominations, the pastors forget that what they can do on their own for the work of God is much less than what could be accomplished if they developed and sent off disciples. Often I see the pastor of a church traveling to participate in services and administrative appointments in other churches, when he could be substituted at those tasks by a competent disciple. I believe that this is mostly due to a flourishing culture among the Evangelical and Protestant, of worshipping the leaders of higher prominence and charisma.

Jesus, himself showed this example, when forming, with so much devotion and care his chosen disciples and sending them off, in his name. In this he was also followed by Paul, who had so much zeal for his disciples as for the doctrine he preached. In other words, the Evangelical churches neglect the discipleship, that is, the formation, by the pastors, of disciples in adequate quantity and attributes, as the most efficient means to promote a multiplication of the church while institution and, consequently, the diffusion of the Gospel.

The current theological graduation schools and seminars are, in general, settled towards the graduation of pastors, through extensive and many times expensive learning programs. There is today an unfolding of the theological teaching, aimed at the formation of church leaders, with a not so deep knowledge level, however with the same purposes. The Sunday School also acts in the sense of providing a basic learning program in the theological doctrine of the denominations, however with more restrict pedagogy and scope.

Nevertheless, I see that the objective of the Christian teaching in that sense is quite limited, with a chief purpose of fostering the participants' edification and spiritual growth. Of course, through those courses, much new leadership is revealed, but the engagement of those leaders is just made within limited areas inside of the structure of the church alone.

CENTRALISM

In the origins of Christianity, the church didn't meet in temples, but in the houses of their members. It is not known for sure how those meetings were held, but it is known that there was full communion among the people and perseverance in prayer.

In Chapter 16 of Paul’s epistle to the Romans, he makes recommendations and greets several major leaders (pastors) of such home-churches, known and trained by him in Asia, including women. He namely mentions five home- churches (verses 5, 10, 11, 14 and 15).

The Catholic Church created a center-driven culture and the doctrine of its exclusive right of celebration of the service and of the doctrinaire authority, which generated the thoroughly ingrained notion in the Christianity that the church reunions can only be held in the official temples and must be conducted only by priests, bishops or highly qualified ecclesiastical authority.

It’s unarguable that the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, the ministration of the sacraments, as well as the preaching of the Scriptures as activities that demand high devotion, life consecration and spiritual knowledge, on the part of those who lead these activities.

Yet, Luther, when created the basis for the rebirth of Christianity, had also turned against this centralized culture of the Catholic Church, which delegated with total exclusiveness to the Pope and his organizational hierarchy, the authority for the exercise of any activities related to the Christian priesthood. Luther maintained that God is revealed to all who seek for him with purpose firmness, honesty and true determination to know and obey him.

The Scriptures are not a hermetic work, accessible to just some few initiates, as in the so called occult sciences. It is right that a thorough study is requested for a better understanding of the Scriptures and of the historical and cultural context in which the Bible was created. However, it is not necessary a doctorate or even a master's degree for a servant's of God training in the ministration of his Word or in the leading of meetings of members of the church. Or, in Paul's words: the Gospel is constituted above all of virtues and not just of words.

I have attended churches in that the domestic meetings were instituted and encouraged, led by specially skilled and trained leaders. The benefit of these meetings was thoroughly visible, whether as a means of evangelization, of the invigoration of faith, of fostering the growth and communion among participants. Those meetings are quite rich in the sharing of life experiences and knowledge, in the offering of emotional comfort and in the support to those who are going through a hard time in their spiritual journey, as well in answering newcomers typical questions about faith.

The “cellular church” accomplishes the purpose of God, brings growth with effectiveness and produces leaders committed and pleased in generating disciples. That is exactly in obedience to what God has pledged: that disciples of all of nations were made. (Psalm 2-8 and Mathew 28-19,20)

The domestic meetings of the church have in mind the disciples' multiplication and the invigoration of the church, so that the Kingdom of God may grow with spiritual authority and success. These extensions of the main temple take the church out of the exclusiveness of clergymen’s drive and take it back the Christian community. The community that breaks through; that recovers its authority and assumes the individual priestly identity, restores the faith and moves on to accomplish the purpose of winning lives for God.

This form of congregation of the church is a great challenge, because it requires participation of all the parishioners and unleashes the layman spiritual authority, although under discreet surveillance. The primary goal is to make a leader out of each member.

When delegating spiritual authority, however, it is necessary a certain care, because some types of infantile and egocentric behavior might show up, requiring all the community to be prepared. The success is exactly in the watching of the meetings with the learning leaders. Those meetings should be strictly frequent and the Word of God should always be emphasized. The new leaders must not feel forsaken, but always be probed in their heart, closing the breaches so that Satan doesn't hurry, going ahead, contaminating the heart. To make a disciple is an incalculable investment. It is possible to produce a church member in 30, 60, 90 days, however, making a disciple takes a whole life.

Those domestic meetings, in my opinion, have a fundamental role in the consolidation of the experience of the real Christian life and a powerful instrument in the diffusion of the Gospel, when properly supervised by the managing body of the church. However, this strategy has been relegated to a second plan, or even entirely discarded by most of the Christian denominations. This "democratization" of the church, has been mistaken by many church authorities as a threat to the doctrinaire integrity and an encouragement to the abuse of faith, to individualism and to the blossoming of false denominations. It is well-known fact though that some sort of problems and some lamentable abuses have taken place, above all in the so called G12 model.

However, disputes, abuses and deviations also take place inside the official temples, internally to the own hierarchy of the church, whether between the pastor and their ministers (Evangelists, presbyters, deacons) or among these ministers and other members, who carry out other leadership functions inside the organization. I believe in the cellular church model, not as an independent church, but as an extension of the main temple, under the authority and the pastoral orientation.

In that way, this congregation form is not just one more innovation among so many modernisms that eventually spring up in modern churches, but an urgent need for the propagation of the Gospel and for the spiritual shaping of a true church. An active and authentic church, made of sure and faith-strengthened followers, through the sharing of their lives in Christ and of the true spiritual communion, and no just composed of a great audience of spectators that reduces their Christian practice to a mere attendance to the Sunday services and to some daily minutes of prayer, that doesn't produce fruits and that can’t really live out the Gospel in their everyday life.

SHEPHERDS WHO DON'T KNOW THEIR SHEEP

" I am the good shepherd; and I know mine own, and mine own know me" John 10:14

In the beginning of the church history, the Bible tells that the first pastors were itinerant, in other words, they visited their congregations one by one, in many cities, looking for to guide, to correct, to instruct and to comfort material and spiritually all of the people.

The Catholic Church, faithful to this tradition, divided the territories under responsibility of each ecclesiastical authority in the hierarchical scale. In this division, the parish is the smallest activity territory, designated to the parish priest or vicar. In the country cities and even in the great cities, some time ago, the regular vicar visits to their parishioners were fairly common, whom he knew as his own family and to whom he assisted, whenever possible or necessary, in their own homes.

With the onset of the fast-paced rhythm of modern life and the territorial growth of the parishes, the priests have more and more returned to their residences, partly driven by the new countless tasks they were assigned and partly moved by a certain disregard to this activity, which certainly became quite tiresome. The face-to-face contact with the public has been delegated more and more to lay groups trained by the church and to the so called pastoral groups, which are actually the equivalent to the ministries of the Evangelical Church.

This same phenomenon of the vicar's estrangement in relation to their parishioners that has taken place at the Catholic Church has also occurred at the Evangelical churches. It is less and less common the pastor’s visits to church members’ homes, for several reasons, most of which of administrative matter. The Increasingly larger attributions assigned to the pastors, regarding tasks in their majority of secular order, demand their continuous presence inside the church and out of his territory. The current pastor’s external agenda is limited to trips to minister, as a guest, the teaching of the word of God in churches other than his own and to participations in Congresses and meetings, in the administrative extent of their denominations. The pastors of our days have of course their share of responsibility in this situation, due to certain unwillingness to taking on the task of keeping in touch with his herd. They frequently complain about not feeling welcome at many homes, of hearing too many complaints and of being forced to deal with ordinary and sometimes quite wearisome troubles.

Anyway, the fact is that vicars and pastors have been more willing to delegate the direct contact with their church members to direct or indirect assistants, moving away of the personal conviviality with the congregation. I believe this is not a good decision, for how can a pastor possibly guide his flock if he doesn’t know his sheep?

In spite of all the inherent inconveniences related to the itinerant character of a pastor’s life, I believe it to be indispensable this personal interaction with the members of the church and even with non-members, outside the church. The pastor's personal life should be transparent to the whole community, because he has once committed it to the cause of his ministry and, therefore to the work of God. The troubles drew from the fact of being exposed to common people sorrows, should be accepted as-is, as a though reality to face, yet this is the very stuff that God uses to foster our spiritual growth. As a matter of fact, it is this way a pastor needs to work if he intends to be truly a useful servant, and to produce real life changes inside his church. Otherwise, how can he really intercede for the people? Relying on information passed by his assistants? Reading the prayer requests hastily thrown down on the pulpit?

The priority order in the pastor’s agenda is, therefore inverted, because the administrative activities should be the ones to consume the least time, and many of these could be delegated to his assistants and even to non-church members. On the other hand, the activities related to the spiritual guidance of his flock, should receive the higher priority of time and effort, because they are the ones that really count, for they yield fruits for God.

I recognize that, alike any human being, the pastor has also his needs of rest and leisure, however it is necessary to have in mind that, more than a doctor who consecrated his life to save material lives, the pastor has dedicated his life as a sacrifice to save souls for God and therefore he must, insofar as possible, to adapt his personal needs to his work calendar and not the opposite.

It is urgent that the pastors return to their original role as spiritual leaders of the church but don't conform to this status, as bureaucrats, full of pomp and vanity. It is urgent that these modern pastors, who don't know their sheep, trade in their elegant suits and glamorous agendas, for simpler dressings and set off on the way. It is urgent that they take their crook and go in search of the conquest of the hearts and minds of their sheep and make sure their flock marches on through safe ways.

CHURCHES OF BLESSINGS

The major goal of the Christian life, truly committed with the salvation, is Christ. After Christ, the cross and after the cross, the eternal life, the Promised Land. This is the correct perspective of a life truly consecrated to God, as we are taught in the Scriptures.

However, we see a regrettable degeneration of this original Christian perspective today, produced by modern theologies that completely mistake the Scriptures. The Evangelical denominations turned to the so called grace and wealth theologies, are becoming more and more popular.

These theologies are grounded on the belief that God doesn't admit their children to suffer in this world, either for illnesses, family conflicts, demoniac influences or for lack of money. According to these theologies, it’s up to the believer to ask and even to demand of God the fulfillment of supposed unconditional promises of blessings and prosperity in their lives, through a total engagement in regular church campaigns for this end.

Those campaigns, miserably, involve usually bizarre things such as cabalistic numbers like “seven weeks”, “forty days”, and some churches have come to the ridicule of introducing superstitious rituals involving handkerchiefs, sacred oils, letters, coarse salt and public sessions of exorcism, among others. Moreover, such campaigns are in general pumped by great sums of the believer’s financial contributions, on the pretext of showing in so doing, a steady faith.

I sincerely believe that, of all the deviations happened in the midst of the Christian church, none saddens more the Spirit of God than the above described. When the Christian loses the central goal of his journey, he or her also loses the right direction and, therefore strays from the path of the Lord, although in a way seemingly fair, as try to make believe those fake Christian churches. The most ironic in all this is that one of those megachurches, which boasts an expressive number of members, shows, above its temples’ doors, the slogan: "Jesus Christ is the Lord."

I find it unnecessary to demonstrate here how anti-biblical are those theologies, because that is evident to any Christian endowed with the minimum of discernment. It is evident that God doesn't want us to suffer, for He is no cruel father. However, the suffering and the pain are conditions practically inevitable in this world plunged into evil and corruption. The mistake lies in leaving aside the main purpose of the spiritual life to concentrate in wrestling the everyday tribulations. It is necessary indeed to face the tribulations, but not forgetting that God is sovereign and he knows the exact measure about everything that we should pass in this world. Some of these tribulations are actually trials, and God allows us to go trough them in order to strengthen our faith, to build up a faithful, brave and righteous servant's spiritual character.

God has never promised his children a delighted life in this world, free from pain and tribulations, quite on the contrary. God’s promises of happiness and eternal bliss are spiritual ones, for those who have been proven worthy of inheriting the eternal life, in his Kingdom, those judged worthy of entering the Promised Land. Many are, however the ones who attend those churches of grace and testify having been favored with countless family and financial blessings. Harmony between spouses, thriving businesses, a new home or the latest car model in the garage. I believe that some of these blessings are really legitimate, but most of those who feel victorious in their campaigns should instead be worried, because the truth is that they have already received their share of blessings, in a material way, nothing having therefore to inherit in the true life, when they leave this world, for their own choice, for it’s written: “But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation”.

The churches of blessings are popular, because they give hope to a dream rocked by most of the people, the one of just to being happy. The churches that preach the true message of God though, are not popular, because they speak above all about regret, about submission to the will of God, about the need of changing personal values, about serving and being faithful to God. This takes us back to the history of the fleeing of the Jewish people from Egypt, throughout the desert, when they complained everyday of the bad life conditions, of the water shortness, of the privation of their favorite food and of the fatigue. All the Jewish people wanted, during their journey to freedom through the desert was to be happy, but they didn't understand that, in order for that to happen, to reach the true happiness, they should before humiliate beneath the potent hand of the Lord and to accept their tribulations as inevitable, however transient, since they were bound to take hold of a truly blessed land.

The journey of the Jewish people throughout the desert typifies our spiritual journey heading for the salvation of our souls. On starting the journey and setting ourselves about to the path, it is necessary to remind, everyday, that our target is Christ, then the cross, upon which it’s necessary to crucify our ego for finally, to reach the true happiness. This is the real proof of the true faith, the one of sacrificing our mean dreams and illusory passions on behalf of a real promise of God of full blessedness, of happiness and joy beside Lord Jesus, when we receive our reward.

PROFANE TEMPLES

When God chose the Jewish people to build up his church in this world, He ordered the construction of a magnificent tabernacle, where He would manifest his glory and where only the priests, strictly prepared and consecrated for this end would enter.

The Jewish tabernacle was the only sacred temple ever in the history of Judaism and of the Christianity. The great first temple, built by Salomon, was profaned by Nebuchadnezzar. The second great temple, built after the return of the Jewish people from the Babylonian exile, which glory should be greater than the former’s, was destroyed by the Romans, remaining only a single wall, the Wall of Lamentations. In this same temple, Jesus, about forty years ago had expelled, to whip blows, the street sellers that worked in its corridors, for they profaned the house of God.

There was, in all those situations, a common fact, that took God to abandon his people to their own luck, to their opponents' fury: Sin.

The pastor of my church in Ponta Grossa, preached a while ago in an emphatic and vehement way on Haggai 2:14, where we learn how the sin poisons everything that is pure, though the inverse process doesn't happen. The sin of a single person can contaminate an entire church that tolerates his or her conduct, with negligence. The pastor finished out his preaching retaking a theme quite common in his ministry and that is deeply linked to the this subject: the continuous profanation of our temples.

Our temples today just keep a pale memory of their sacred character, of a prayer house, where is invoked the presence of the Lord. Our temples today resemble more to ordinary public buildings, because they are continually profaned by the very people that frequent them and even by those who preach in their pulpits, or who play in their orchestras, choirs and praise bands.

Like our body is profaned when we prostituted, or the celebration of the Supper of the Lord is profaned when we eat it unworthily, the church is also profaned when we enter the temple to adore God or preach his word, having our lives divorced of the ways of Salvation.

God has constrained me to abandon a work I had taken up in Ponta Grossa, with a group of youths in recovery of drug and alcohol addiction, for a reason that only a while later was revealed to me: I had assumed that work being hooked to a serious vice, which I didn't get yet to curb.

If our sin contaminates our works, it also contaminates our adoration and our prayers. One cannot serve God and the world. That’s why God is absent of our temples, yet many Christians don't realize that, and are surprised when they hear about a church which was battered or invaded by burglars or destroyed by some catastrophe, either natural or human. Our esteem and our pride for our temples and denominations are entirely vain, as long as the temples of our bodies and of our homes keep being profaned by conducts that displease God and distance us from him.

Back to the Living Church - 1 - Introduction

2006-04-15T12:18:00.000-07:00

A DISTURBING QUESTION

If the book of Revelation were written today, which would the content of the letters sent to the present churches?

With rare exceptions, the evangelical and Protestant churches have turned out, more and more, into local points of social meetings, where take place regular and standardized rituals, on behalf of the praise and adoration to God, just a little livelier than the Catholic masses. The people attend to these reunions as a matter of habit, sense of duty or out of the need of social contact and conviviality with other people sharing the same faith.

The praises intoned by the visitors of these services have been characterized more and more by music, songs and praise addressed to them, and not to God. The musical styles of the songs are more and more adapted to the taste and the style of the current culture, revealing an intention of pleasing more who hears them than the one whom should be dedicated the praise.

We have created, above all in the evangelical environment, a real cultural industry of literature and Christian music, on the pretext of praising and adoring God and to offer the Christian flock help and encouragement in their journey. The problem lies not in these activities in themselves, which are mostly spontaneous and praiseworthy, but in the abuse of the resources of this industry that, as every cultural industry, is more concerned with the profits than with the outcome of their work. The quality and the spirituality that should characterize these products are substituted by the sales volume, by the emphasis in the style and by the cult around the authors' personality, just as it happens in the secular cultural industry.

We are entangled at some churches in an intense ecclesiastical activism, a frenzied rhythm of internal activities, such as encounters, symposia, Congresses, graduation and theological information courses, destined to the noble, but almost always not attained goal of deepening the relationship and the man's knowledge with his or her Creator.

Currently, the Christian evangelicalism has been following, roughly speaking, three directions, according to the human nature, just as in the politics: One liberal, one of center and a conservative one. The liberal slope, is usually bonded to the so called "theology of the prosperity", which admits every sort of theological and practical innovations, destined to guarantee to the Christian the materialization of supposed divine promises of wealth and welfare, still in this world. This trend, has reached such innovation levels in the church so poisoning as to accept homosexuality as a normal condition of life, even among their followers.

The center theological line admits some innovation in the services, but it makes sure to hold to the Protestant tradition of submission to the sovereignty of God and to the Lutheran mainlines: Solo Fide, Sola Gratia, Solus Christus, Sola Scriptura. The services are characterized by the preaching of the Scripture, by the prayer and, in the Pentecostal churches, by the search of Holly Ghost intervention in the church, for restoration, for healing and spiritual liberation. It is interesting to notice though, that it is in the Lutheran and Methodist churches that the most liberal and controversial movements of the history of the Christianity have been looming.

The conservative line is quite faithful to the Protestant tradition, whether in the services, in the theology or in the praises. Frequently accused of legalism and fundamentalism, changes of any kind or disobedience to the rigid patterns of the church rules are promptly rebuked. In this group are also included some Pentecostal denominations.

Whatever be the modern churches’ creed, what shows in common among them is always the same spiritual emptiness, the invasion of the secularism, of the ritualism, the search of the personal blessings and, in the best guess, of the blessings for members of one´s family or friends. What happened to the communitarian and fervent church of the time of the Acts of the Apostles?

That church lived, in my opinion, what one could call a true Christian communism, where all divided efforts in the sense of mutually aiding each other, either in the material and in the spiritual issues. There were indeed the services, most of the time secretly held, which major objective, however, was of sharing the Christian experience, the mutual invigoration in faith, the study of the Scriptures, the prayer, the sincere adoration to God and, above all the spiritual intercession and the material cooperation among the God-fearing members. A church in that the presence of the Spirit of God was evident and constant, where signs and miracles were operated, by the authentic fervor, the fasting and the heart brokenness.

Would this church be definitively forgotten, the church which should be the model for Christ's true church, the bride that He will come to rescue when of his return to this world?

What is preached today, in most churches, is a false salvation, an apparent salvation, where is solely emphasized the grace with which it is presented and the faith requested to accept her. In the passion to increase the number of proselytes, the infidels are persuaded by the pastors to believe that it is just enough to mumble a "yes" to Jesus' calling and the baptism in the waters, to have his or her name definitively enrolled in the list of the children of God. They are not prepared to deny themselves, to take on their cross, to be crucified with Christ and to follow the narrow road, stippled of tribulations and trials, that leads to the true salvation.

For lacking wisdom and discernment and many times even honesty, those people don’t realize, in their spiritual journey, that the true life conversion, as described in the Scriptures, is not just marked by a separatism, many times arrogant of the Christian in relation to the world, or by a mere intolerance, many times hypocrite towards sin and the consequent sinner's discrimination, but mostly by the fruit of the Spirit and for an effective Christian practice. This is clear in Jesus' words, which state clearly that not all who say "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of Heaven.

It’s also clear, above all in Paul's words, always mentioned when one want to emphasize that salvation is not fruit of works, but that is reached by faith alone.

It’s Paul himself who affirms that we are saved "for the good works that God has prepared for us" and who declares, before the king Agrippa that what he preached to all, was that "that they should repent and turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance". The true repentance therefore, is not that which only produces remorse, but the one that produces conversion or, in other words, life change and, consequently, works suitable with this attitude. Finally, if it is true that a non-converted man's works don't do right to his or her salvation, it is also true, as says James, that “even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself”.

What lead me to write down this text are two questions that have been drawing my attention for a long time. The first one is: What causes so many people to raise so many objections as to being a member of a church, independently of its Christian denomination and another question, closely related to the former: What motive leads so many people to drop out of his or her affiliation to a Christian church?

On musing over these questions, I discovered that actually, a lot of people flee from the churches because they don’t live an intimate communion with God. These people don't like to hear the word of God and they don't sense the presence of God in the church or elsewhere at all. The church has nothing to do with them. However, a lot of people stand back of the churches exactly for the opposite reason, that is, because they live a true communion with God, they don't get to identify, at the churches they worship, a suitable place to share this communion with others and to accomplish the works that God has prepared for their lives.

I don't have the pretension of pointing out here what is right or what is wrong in this or that church in particular, but as a Christian I can’t keep from observing some lamentable evidences that show how some evangelical churches have strayed from the authentic Christian Gospel.

How God Reconstructs a Life - 3 - The Second Door Opened

2005-12-25T05:28:00.000-08:00

Conclusion

One day, during a crusade I had enrolled at the Baptist Church of Lagoinha to find a job, I had caught a though flu and hesitated in going to the church, at night.

My sister made a point that I stayed home, because I had some fever. Something however, was telling me that I should go, and I did.

During the service, on that night, while I prayed with great fervor, I heard clearly in my heart, the following sentence: "I can give you much more than a job !... "

Some days later, while I strayed downtown in Belo Horizonte, I decided to stop in front of an official employment agency and read the bulletin board of job offerings. To my surprise, I came across an ad looking for a Mechanical Engineer in Parana state, without any restriction as to the experience time neither to the age.

I decided to call the firm and I talked directly with the person who had announced the position. He was actually looking for a technical responsible engineer, for a work he was carrying out in a nearby town. After thinking a while, I decided not to simply take on the technical responsibility for that work, but I told him that I would only do it if he could include me in his company´s staff.

The following day, I received another phone call of that company, informing that there was a position available in my area, and that I should move to Parana, if it was of my interest, the sooner possible. I asked about the need of sending a curriculum, but my employer said that it was not necessary, by that time, and that he would examine it later.

I considered this a true miracle, because for a long time I had been seeking any kind of work, without success. I knew that at my age, 47 years old, that would be really difficult. God opened for me however not only the door to an ordinary job, but an opportunity to restart my career in my own graduation area, even having no professional experience in mechanics and at an age in which the job market closes the doors for the specialized professionals.

More than that, I would learn later, this second opened door revealed the alternative plan of God for my life, the path for my spiritual salvation and regeneration.

Before deciding to accept that job offer, I hesitated a lot however, because I would leave my sister alone in BH, leave my children and to live alone, in a place totally unknown to me. Again, I looked for the divine orientation and on a Wednesday, while on my way to the IBL church, I thought to myself that God could really use the preacher to say something like “there is a person among the presents that has come with a great doubt in his heart” and so on and give me an orientation.

I laughed in silence at myself, because of that thought, that I discarded as absurdity, although I had already heard of testimonies of similar prophecies. Which was not my surprise however, when, during the service, the missionary said: "There is a person here that has a doubt, whether he should or not travel to a distant place, because of a commitment. The Lord is telling me that this person must go, and go in peace, because his angel is following ahead of him."

I could not believe my ears, and I looked around, with tears in my eyes, at that big crowd, hardly believing that God had indeed talked to me! He had not just heard my thoughts but had immediately fulfilled my desire and provided me with the answer I so much needed to take that important decision in my life!

During that trip, heading for Ponta Grossa, God did, once more, in his infinite grace, communicated with me to send a wonderful message, while I slept in the bus. In a dream, I saw a beautiful sign, in which was recorded, as in fire letters, the following words: “Draw your strength from the strength of Jesus Christ”

And that's what I have done, ever since. I have been living with my sister in Parana for seven years. I liken this time of my life to the Jewish people babylonian exile, right after Nebuchadnezzar seized the ancient Kingdom of Judah and deported the people, holding them in captivity for 70 years.I believe that, In the same way as the jewish people captivity came to and end at the due time, my personal exile will end as well now. I have clamored at God that He may guide me to the place where I might serve him better, and open up for me the Third Door, through which I will be able to lay hold of an entirely new life, fully restored in Christ.

How God Reconstructs a Life - 2 - The First Door Opened

2005-12-25T05:23:00.000-08:00

However, God had not forsaken me, for He never gives up his children and He had for me an alternative life plan, which should finally guide me to his encounter and to the turning point of my spiritual life, which was actually driving me to death.

I had never sympathized with evangelical churches, which I saw as a deplorable mix of ignorance and spiritual fanaticism.

My uncle, our neighbor, frequented one of those churches at that time, and he seemed never get tired of telling me and my family about the great victories he had achieved through the church and about his faith in God. He often invited me to go with him to that church, without any commitment, just to check out what he said.

For two or three times I refused, not seeing any opportunity to find there the way out I so much looked for my despair.

One day however, because of my mother's insisting - she had already gave up the spiritualism practices - I decided to go with her to that church that my uncle recommended.

The reading of a biblical verse by the pastor that presided the service on that day, struck me as a lightning bolt. Arriving home, I rushed to my bible to check, in II Timothy 1:7 that awesome verse:

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind..”

I felt at that church a strong spiritual warmness that drew from me a great interest and encouraged me to come back. From a mere visitor, I became an assiduous attender , being enthusiastic for the collective fervor and the beauty of the praise brought to God in the services.

Gradually, I was getting interested in the Bible, a book that I considered outdated and of difficult understanding. The Bible started unveiling before me a whole new dimension and unleashing a lavish significance stream, that revealed the living message of God for my life.

For the first time I felt, in that church, the undeniable presence of God and I could notice that He spoke to me through my heart and not my intellect. There, amid all that people that I before despised, I found the true communion with God and I could finally open my heart to His Holly Spirit.

I began to really seek God, with honesty and pledge because I knew that I was not reaching out to an imaginary idealized god, but to a God whose existence I sensed, not only when in the church, but inside of me.

One day finally, at the church, while praising that true God, with happiness and enthusiasm, holding the hands of the people by my side, I sensed strongly the presence of Jesus beside me.

I did not imagined it, and that perception caught me in surprise, what caused me to instinctively look towards Him. I cannot describe the feelings that invaded me on that moment, nor the happiness that I felt, for noticing the intense love feeling and comfort that emanated of His silent presence.

The Christ who I so much had looked for rationally and had never truly found , was revealed then to me with all his kindliness and magnificence in such a captivating, yet simple and direct way, when I opened my heart to him.

Starting from this day, I consecrated to him my life and I was confronted then with the sheer conscience of all my past mistakes. I was overwhelmed by a great remorse feeling, but that little by little changed into a sincere regret, for the understanding of the meaning of all of the consequences of those mistakes, in my own life and in the life of the people that surrounded me.

I asked then Jesus to forgive all those mistakes and that He saved my soul, for I had the firm determination of restarting my life, of being born again, according to His promise. The immense guilt weight that I felt was then somehow removed off my shoulders, when I felt that I had been forgiven. I believed in this forgiveness, because Jesus, and only Him, was given the authority and the power of forgiving us, when He pawned his own life for us.

I tried in vain to restore my marriage, but it was too late. God drove me on to a desert of spiritual probation, in which my old psychological structure has been little by little being brought to pieces, while a new man's spiritual form was being built up. This was the first great door God has opened in my life.

Not long after, I have been struck by my mother's death, what deeply shook me and were it not for Jesus having reached with his hand at this moment, I could not have born this loss.

Conclusion

How God Reconstructs a Life - 1 - Crooked Ways

2005-12-25T05:15:00.000-08:00

I was born in a traditional Catholic home and I used to attend the Mass every Sunday, but our home has been swept up by spiritualist practices and philosophy, through my mother and my sister influence.

In spite of not having ever clung to any religion, I felt in my heart, from the adolescence, a strong sympathy for Jesus, although I didn't know by that time the distance that still separated us.

The negative influence of those spiritualistic practices brought about a quite deplorable aftermath in the life of every member of our family, and we often found ourselves tangled in disagreements, quarrels and frustration.

This shadowy mood, together with my intellectual curiosity, lead me to venture in yet more tortuous spiritual ways, through the esoteric doctrines.

I had inside of me a sincere desire of spiritual growth and of approaching God, but I headed to directions that ironically moved me more and more away of his presence.

I attended, for three years, an esoteric school, in which I was initiated in magic rituals, for the sake of the noble aim of eliminating my ego and the building of a “superior spiritual body”.

In that school, I had contact with most of the current literature on oriental religions, Theosophy, Zen Buddhism, Rosicrucian and others alike, which fascinated me and drew me through streams of amazingly lavish explanations concerning fascinating and deep matters such as the spiritual dimensions of the universe, the Creation process and man's and other beings´origin and ultimate destiny.

Nevertheless, none of those so called books of wisdom have led me anywhere, and neither they brought me hope or have made me feel any closer of God.

To the opposite, I built knowledge walls around myself, which isolated me more and more of the people, and cast me into a shadowy world of deep introspection, passivity and selfishness.

I married an instructor of transcendental meditation, what has got me yet more distant from the true path that God had planned for my life.

Due to my retracted and insecure personality, though overbearing proud and selfish, I had much difficulty in thriving in my professional life, and although I had successfully graduated in Mechanical Engineering, I could not build a sound career. I enjoyed an excellent job, which provided me a highly satisfactory lifestyle, occupying a prominence position in the company in which I worked.

Yet, I did not make my way in this position, and although I had traced a consistently rising career along 16 years, I saw myself unemployed, at the age of 39, due to an administrative restructuring of the company.

I lost by that time my father, who passed away. He was someone I respected and admired, but with whom I did not get along very closely, due to some differences in the way we saw the world. I could not even be present at his funeral, for I was traveling with my family.

Although I earnestly sought for the divine protection , I found out that I had stood back of God when I committed my first adultery, mistake that would still repeat for twice.

I didn't get from this year on to succeed in any other job, having also failed in an attempt of running a small business. In my despair to settling down, I looked for all the spiritualistic resources available, such as astrology, fortune telling, catholic prayers, and even Umbanda sessions.

My insecurity and anxiety regarding my future, lead me to regularly resort specially to the Tarot and fortune telling. Although several forecasts indeed took place, that never contributed to bring me safety or peace of mind at all.

One day, God showed me the absurdity of this habit, when, after consulting a quite respected, fortune teller I left with great hopes, because she had guaranteed me that I would get that much-longed job, to the point of describing the details of the very moment when I would receive the news. To my sheer disappointment, nothing of what she had predicted actually happened.

In my pride and self-centeredness, I did not realize that my life was dangerously degenerating. I had no awareness of the mistakes I had made so far and that I was walking away from my wife and my children, sinking more and more in my anguish, not having however the initiative to change the situation I had caused myself.

This situation reached its climax with the end of my ten-year-old marriage, what threw me into a terrible depression and deep spiritual and emotional misery. I was forced to live with my mother and my sister, and then life lost for me all purpose.

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