Unending Horizons Of Truth.

People seek not only to be wealthy but also want their wealth to place them in the corridors of influence and importance.  So they give massively to influential and important people because some of that influence/importance appears to rub off on them. They want to be able to say: “I know him.” “I support her.” “I was there.” “I contributed.” “He knows me.”  “She personally thanked me.” The gift becomes a passport into someone's perceived world of significance & relevance. Meanwhile, the poor person has nothing to offer except a need.  And that is precisely where the moral test becomes severe. Can you value a person who cannot increase your status? This is why Christ's teaching about the “least” is so revolutionary. Jesus repeatedly shifts attention away from social importance & influence toward real human need. In Matthew 25:34-46 He identifies Himself with the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick and imprisoned. The astonishing feature of that teaching is that ...

People can become extraordinarily generous when generosity enhances their visibility, proximity to influence, or sense of importance, yet become remarkably stingy when generosity requires them to see and respond to suffering that offers them no social reward. The core thing in giving is not how much a person gives but the motive, the heart, it is a question of why people give, to whom they give, and what kind of reward they are seeking from it. There is a form of giving that looks like generosity but is, at its deepest level, an investment in the giver's public identity. That's ego running self-investment in the garb of generosity. A person may give lavishly to a celebrity, prominent minister, politician, influencer, popular organization, or prestigious platform because that giving purchases something intangible: recognition, proximity, favour, access, status, association, or public validation. The gift becomes a transaction: “I give to you because you are important, and your i...

Anything Wrong With A Happy New Month Greeting? Some christians think a happy new month or a happy new year greeting is out of place. Some even quote scriptures like Galatians 4:10 to condemn such as observance of days and months. The truth however, is that a happy new month or happy new year greeting is not in anyway an observation of days, months or years in the context of which Paul speaks in Galatians 4:10. Paul was speaking against religious legalism; observing sacred times/Jewish feast days & months as a requirement for justification before God. Applying Galatians 4:10 to condemn saying "Happy New Month" or "Happy New Year" is not consistent with the context of Paul's argument. Let's look at the passage: "You observe days, and months, and times, and years." -Galatians 4:10. What was Paul talking about? Paul was writing to Christians in Galatia who were being persuaded by some teachers that they needed to observe aspects of the Jewish law ...

  Often we hear some professing christians & preachers teach & boldly assert that Jesus became sin, that on the cross Jesus was made to become sin itself and when he died, sin died.  They strongly believe this is what scripture teaches in 2nd Corinthians 5:21 but is this true? The truth is Jesus never became sin and couldn't have become sin, scripture in 2nd Corinthians 5:21 says he was "made sin for us"...."poieō harmatia huper hēmōn" which in essence is made a "sin-offering" for us. In both Hebrew and Greek, the word for sin sometimes means "sin offering".  For example in Genesis 4:7 where God said to Cain: "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him"; The word translated as "sin" in the common english version of this verse is "chaṭṭâ'âh" which is actually a sin offering and...

Sin Cannot Take Any Man To Hell But Unbelief? You must have heard some so called "grace" preachers teaching that sin cannot take any man to hell but unbelief. Now this sounds very logical and scripturally sound, yet it takes gross biblical ignorance laced with spiritual conceit to make such a statement/assertion. The sting of death is sin(1st Corinthians 15:56) The wages of sin is death(Romans 6:23), and it is both the natural death which came into the world on account of sin and the second death which is eternal damnation in the lake of fire(Revelation 20:14). To assert that sin cannot take any man to hell is to assert that the sting of death is no longer sin and the wages of sin has ceased to be death. One would have to write his own bible to uphold such nonsense. If sin takes no one to hell, let us eat and drink, revel in iniquity & have fun with no restraint, for to morrow we die.  The apostolic rebuke of scripture to such falsehood & disposition of lasciviousness...

Can One Who Has Escaped The Pollutions Of The World Through The Knowledge Of The Lord & Saviour Jesus, Later Get Entangled In It? None who has thoroughly and holistically studied the subject of salvation in scripture, would carelessly or flippantly assert once saved always saved. In the second epistle of Peter the word escape or escaped(apopheugō) is used thrice in a sense that denotes salvation. 1.) 2nd Peter 1:4 "through which he has given to us the greatest and precious promises, that through these ye may become partakers of the divine nature, having ESCAPED the corruption that is in the world through lust." 2.) 2nd Peter 2:18 For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean ESCAPED from them who live in error.  3.) 2nd Peter 2:20 For if after they have ESCAPED the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled the...

Has God Predestinated/Predetermined Who Will Go To Heaven Or Hell? The word predestinate is proorizō in the original greek and it means to predetermine, decide beforehand, to foreordain, appoint beforehand. God has not predestinated any individual to an eternal destiny in heaven or hell. Divine predestination is in relation to corporate destiny and not individual destiny. The church as a corporate entity/body is: Predestinated to be conformed to the image of God's Son - Romans 8:29. Predestinated unto adoption of Sonship according to the good pleasure of his will - Ephesians 1:5. Predestinated according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his own will - Ephesians 1:11. Ephesians 1:5 & 11 clearly shows that divine predestination is according to divine will and 2nd Peter 3:9 says it is not the will of God that any should perish but that all should come to repentance, it is thus absolutely wrong to think or to assert that God has predestinated any one ...

  Scripture in Revelation 19:10 clearly states that the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus and this emphatic statement was made as a reprehension/censure against a very subtle tendency to divided worship; tendency to worship a creature/vessel greatly used of God alongside the creator(God). Revelation 19:10 And I fell before his feet to worship or do him homage. And he says to me, See thou do it not. I am thy fellow-bondman, and the fellow-bondman of thy brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God. For the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. Even in the presence of overwhelming revelation, the instruction was clear: Worship God, not the vessel...the spirit of prophecy has nothing before it as it's focus & very essence, but the testimony of Jesus. It's not about any man or vessel greatly used of God, but Jesus. Having any other thing in view is veiling & obscuring the testimony of Jesus, and that represents immense spiritual loss; losing that...

  You most likely have heard people say words like: "don't become too heavenly conscious and earthly useless". Scripturally there's no such contemplation of a believer becoming too heavenly conscious or minded and earthly useless or stupid. In reality, it's impossible to become too heavenly conscious in a world where we barely see heavenly(unseen) realities, and even when by faith we see them, we only see through a glass darkly/dimly.  It only takes absolute faith in God's word to have one's heart and mind set on unseen, eternal realities in a physical world governed by sight. We walk by faith and not by sight says the inspired apostle, but how scarcely & how so little this is the reality in present day christendom, largely governed by sight with it's devotion & worship system built around the physical & earthly ie. things made with hands. We cannot have so much of the sights of heaven to be considered redundant/excess. Scripture nowhere wa...

  The Glory Of Man(Of The Flesh) In The Church Of Christ. The church in Corinth was walking in manifestation of spiritual gifts like gifts of healing, working of miracles, word of wisdom, prophecy, different kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues, etc; It was such that they came short of no spiritual gift as acknowledged by scripture (1st Corinthians 1:4-7). This is a church we would readily judge today as spiritually sound, mature/grown but scripture goes on to show us that functioning in spiritual gifts is not a mark of spiritual maturity, as the apostle in the 3rd chapter of 1st Corinthians says to this same church that was walking in manifestation of spiritual gifts: "And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and di...

Have you ever heard a preacher assert that God cannot do anything on earth without man's permission, that God has no legal rights upon the earth except that which man gives him? Where did some preachers/christians get this kind of weird thought and teaching from? Surely not from the bible. When man fell in Eden did God get permission/legal rights from man to step in and address the issue? Or Did God get permission from any man to come down on earth and confound the language of the human race at Babel & thus stop them from building the tower of Babel? I marvel at the irreverent audacity of biblical ignorance with which some preachers/christians make such assertions, like God is handicapped when there is no man to give him permission and become a vessel he will use to accomplish his purposes upon the earth. I always ask people who speak this way....."where were you when God created the earth"? Where was man when God came down and planted the garden of Eden? Have you nev...

  Poverty Is Not A Curse. Preachers Who Deride & Denigrate The Poor Are Of The Synagogue Of Satan. Peddlers of modern prosperity narratives in the church often say boldly that poverty is a curse.  This they teach with all gusto even to the denigration of poor saints as though the believer in Christ who is poor is cursed. The truth however, is that what they teach with an open bible is completely alien & contrary to what the bible teaches, such that anyone who reads his bible will be left wondering where these men are coming from and what is in the bible they're carrying around from place to place to minister. Poverty is not a curse; it's not a curse to suffer lack or need. The apostles often lacked materially. In 2nd Corinthians 6:10 Paul speaking of the apostles as ministers of God said: “We are poor, yet making many rich.”  Also in Philippians 4:12 he said " I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed bot...

Time To Begin To Ask Very Pertinent Questions Concerning Our Faith. "Examine your own selves if ye be in the faith; prove your own selves: do ye not recognise yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed ye be reprobates?" - 2nd Corinthians 13:5 It's the first day of a new calendar year and it's being impressed upon my heart that it's time for a throwback to examine our faith, time for retrospection & introspection to ask ourselves: what have we really come to believe in all these years? Is what we have received and believed in consistent with the faith the early church saints tenaciously held unto and died for or died clinging to? The messages being preached to us today, is it what the apostles like Peter, Paul etc. will be preaching if they were here today? The prayer points or prayer we're being led to vociferously pray today, is it what the apostles will be leading us to pray for if they were here today? What is the Christ content of what is ...

There's a very subtle idolatry and evil least discerned in the present day church...an idolatry so sanctified by 'christian' language, so polished & baptized by culture, that many do not recognize it's shape.  It is the golden calf of present-day Christendom, not a statue of precious metals, but ministers sculpted into idols by the hands of admiration, applause, honour and adulation. In the days of Aaron, Israel said, “Make us gods which shall go before us.” — Exodus 32:1 And today, although our lips deny it, our behaviour echoes it. We have made gods of men, and gold of ministers to go before us, and we follow these religious personalities more passionately than walking in the steps of Christ. The golden calf has returned in ministers clad in priestly robes, suits & clerical collars with golden edge bibles and men in black following and standing by them, while they speak. We call them men of God, but in truth many have become men of gold, moulded by the gospel ...

"The gospel of salvation is only 10% of the kingdom; the gospel of the kingdom makes up the remaining 90%. The epistles help build believers, but for societal influence and national transformation, we must go beyond the epistles and the salvation message into the gospel of the kingdom." Words spoken/taught by a certain preacher in an ongoing christian conference, which many considered as a very powerful & great teaching, but how true are these assertions? Are they scriptural? To answer this, it is important for us to note that discipleship is unto the kingdom(Matthew 13:52), and in the epistles of the apostles we have so great salvation in view, from it's beginning to it's consummation at the Lord's appearing unto all eternity, and we have kingdom discipleship. It is thus strange for a preacher to assert that we must go beyond the epistles & the salvation message into the gospel of the kingdom.  Such an assertion implies that the epistles of the apostles i...