Today in our society, it seems that every six month there has been more Bible is coming out. I mean the new Bible versions. Since the first full English Bible version was available, King James Version or Authorized Version (1611), there have been many more versions available for us to easy to understand. Of course, there were about nineteen other Bible versions were available before 1611.

• Wycliffe’s Version (1382 A.D.): First systematic translation of the Bible into English by John Wycliffe. It was lasted until the 16^th century and over 170 manuscripts copies survived.
• Alba Bible (1422-33): The first Spanish translation of the completed Old Testament by a Jewish scholar Moises Arragel.
• Gutenberg Bible (1456): The first Bible ever printed by John Gutenberg.
• Complutensian Polyglot (1514-17): First completed Bible published in Spain.
• Tyndale’s Bible (1525-31): First original English translation from Hebrew and Greek by William Tynadale.
• Luther’s Bible (1534): German translation.
• Coverdale’s Bible (1535): First complete printed version of the Scriptures in English.
• ”Bug” Bible (1535 or 1551): Early English edition and its nickname derive from a quaint rendering of Psalm 91:5.
• Other Bibles before KJV were:
• Serrieres Bible (1535)
• Great Bible (1539)
• Gustaf Vasa Bible (1541)
• Geneva Bible (1560)
• Radziwill Bible (1563)
• Bishops’ Bible (1568)
• Antwerp Polyglot Bible (1568-72)
• Kralice Bible (1579-93)
• Ostrog Bible (1581)
• Vizsoly Bible (1590)
• Douay Version (1582-1610)
• Authorized (King James) Version (1611)

(See Almanac of the Bible by Geoffrey Wigoder, Ph.D., pp. 401-404.)

The first twenty versions of the Bible were probably from the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, include other language manuscripts that agree with Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. Since Authorized Version was published, there are at least 200 Bible versions available in United States alone, such as Revised Version, The English Bible, New Living Translation, New King James Version, New International Version, and more.

Why we have so many Bible versions in our country alone? Is the one Bible version enough to understand God’s Word? We may not hear this subject from our church leaders. Why do I discuss this? God warned us not to twist His Words, but we may forget to keep His warning and change His Words as comfortable for us to read. I believe that there is the only one true Bible, which God spoke through many generations—Authorized Version (1611).

Read with me in Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32; and Revelation 22:18-19. I would like to use KJV for this very topic.

Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. (Deuteronomy 4:2)

What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it. (Deuteronomy 12:32)

For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. (Revelation 22:18-19)

As we read these four verses, God clearly gave us instruction not to try to change His original Words. In Deuteronomy 4:2 and 12:32, God commands us, but He warns us what we should not to do in Revelation 22:18-19. Why is this important to us?

Since Satan deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3), he is trying to keep us from God. In the previous message, I explained couple ways that Satan tries to deceive us. From that message, you would notice how Satan deceives us— that is WORDS. In Genesis 3, Satan twisted God’s spoken Words to Eve about certain fruit tree or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I don’t know what kind of fruit tree. Most people said that it was an apple tree, because an apple is healthier to our body system and King Solomon said it as to describe his bride’s health in Song of Solomon. But Adam and Eve failed miserably after they ate the fruit of one tree that God warned them what not to eat.

And… this deception is going on even these days. Now, Satan uses the Bible to try to deceive us. Many modern Bible versions are easier to read than ever. Some Bible scholars said that modern Bible versions set up as reading level grades, such as:

• KJV: 12.0 grade reading level
• NASB: 11.0 grade reading level
• LB: 8.3 grade reading level
• NKJV: 8.0 grade reading level

(See an article on “New Century Version: Easy to Read or Easy to Deceive?” at www.av1611.org/kjv/ncv.html.)

Does God’s Word for everybody? If it is, why do we need grade reading level system? KJV Bible was set up for everybody, even for the young children, but we made KJV difficult to understand God’s Words. We may update English language into modern English style. Or we may feel like if God’s Word is too old to understand and need to update His Words for our generation. Whatever the reason is, we must keep God’s Words as it was.

God does not need change His Words for us to understand easier. In Matthew 24:35 says, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” If we understand God’s Words, we let the Holy Spirit to teach us the Words, instead of buying the new version of the Bible to expend our divine knowledge.

Most of the modern Bible versions may not agree with the original Bible version. Some preachers use today’s Bible versions to teach us the easiest way to live a Christian life. Or some Bible versions teach us that we can make many ways to Jesus, such as playing gamble, enjoy the clubs (see articles on Refuel Bible and Revolve Bible for Christian teens at www.av1611.org/othpubl.html). Or some Bibles omit the verse(s) and/or passage(s) of the Scripture from the original, such as New International Version and New Century Version.

Why? Although many biblical scholars proclaim that omitting and rewording the Scriptures was from extra that the people put there, the revision part of the Bible was not existed until 1881.

“”If someone decides to produce a "new Bible version", then they must also convince Christians that there is a NEED and a justifiable CAUSE for the new version. One of the deceitful excuses being used today for producing new versions is that the King James Bible has been revised several times since 1611, and that a new revision is needed once again. While spreading this piece of deceitful misinformation, the KJV critics hold their breath, hoping that no one will be intelligent enough to ask for specific details about these "revisions". The many revisions that have occurred since 1881 bear NO RESEMBLANCE to the various EDITIONS of the KJV prior to 1881. The modern revisors are just trying to justify their sins!” (See Fighting Back! A Handy Reference Guide for King James Bible Believers by James L. Melton.)

Why do we need to justify our sins? According to God, He already washed our sins away by sending His Son to the world to pay our debts of sins by dying on the cross and resurrected on the third day to be with His Father, so that He can send us the Holy Spirit live among us everyday. If the new versions of the Bible try to justify sins, then revisors may need to reread KJV thoroughly before they’d do all the changes in the Bible.

“There were only FOUR actual EDITIONS of the King James Bible produced after 1611: 1629, 1638, 1762, and 1769. These were not translations (like the new versions SINCE 1881), and they really weren't even "revisions".

“The 1629 edition was simply an effort to correct printing errors, and two of the original King James translators assisted in the work.“The 1638 edition of the KJV also dealt with printing errors, especially words and clauses overlooked by the printers. About 72% of the textual corrections in the KJV were done by 1638, only 27 years after the first printing.

“Please bear in mind the fact that printing was a very laborious task prior to 1800. Publishing a flawless work was almost impossible. Even today, with computers and advanced word processors, printing errors are still frequently made. Imagine what it was like in the 1600's!

“Then, in 1762 and 1769, two final editions of the KJV were published. Both of these involved spelling changes, which became necessary as the English language became more stabilized and spelling rules were established.

“There were no new translations, and there were really no new revisions published in 1629, 1638, 1762, or 1769. These were simply EDITIONS of the 1611 KJV, which corrected printing errors and spelling. Those who try to equate these editions with the modern translations are just being deceitful or stupid--or both. The many other so-called "revisions" of the KJV that occurred in 1613, 1616, 1617, and 1743 are nothing more than running changes and touch-up work at the printers. The REAL revisions and translations do not start appearing until 1881 (RV) and 1901 (ASV). So if some punk walks up with a smirky grin on his face and asks you, "So which King James Bible do you have, the 1611, the 1629, the 1638, the 1762, or the 1769?", you can simply state that you have a 1769 edition of the King James 1611 Authorized Version. (See Fighting Back! A Handy Reference Guide for King James Bible Believers by James L. Melton.)

So, what are some errors that the modern day of the Bibles presents? As I said earlier, some Bible versions omit some portion or entire of the passages left out. For example,

Luke 4:4—Many counterfeits remove the last half of Luke 4:4, ". . . but by every word of God" This is another assault on the Word of God. In Luke 4:4, the Lord Jesus Christ is quoting Deuteronomy 8:3. Do the counterfeiters believe the Lord Jesus does not know what Deuteronomy 8:3 says? (See How to Spot a Counterfeit Bible?.)

Acts 8:37—Some counterfeits completely remove this wonderful verse (and several others). Acts 8:37 is the Ethiopian eunuch getting saved. The counterfeits stop him from getting saved. Some counterfeits are a little more subtle. They do not remove the verse from the text, but will add a footnote questioning the verse and plant a seed of doubt. Sound familiar? "Yea, hath God said. . .?" Many counterfeits also remove: Matthew 17:21, 18:11, 23:14, Mark 7:16, 9:44, 9:46, Mark 11:26, 15:28, Luke 17:36, 23:17, John 5:4, Acts 8:37, 15:34, 24:7, 28:28, Romans 16:24 and 1 John 5:7! (See How to Spot a Counterfeit Bible?.)

Some versions may make us to confuse between “the morning star” as Jesus Christ or Lucifer. In Revelation 22:16, Jesus proclaims that He is the morning star, but many new versions put the morning star to describe Lucifer in Isaiah 14:12. Honoring Lucifer as equal to Jesus Christ is deadly sinned against God’s Word. We should not compare Lucifer as Messiah.

Attacking the deity of Jesus Christ is also deadly against His Word. Acts 4:27—many counterfeits abort the Lord Jesus Christ as the Father’s "holy child" to His "holy servant". A subtle (see Genesis 3:1) and clever denial of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. The counterfeits do this again in Acts 4:30. (See How to Spot a Counterfeit Bible?.)

Not only we need to look the scriptural errors, but we also need to look what kind of symbols and where the Bible was published. Some Bibles contained symbol on the cover that comes out from witchcraft, Masonry, New Age Religion, and other religion of organizations. For example, the publisher of the NKJV, Thomas Nelson Publishing, may claim that their bible's logo represents the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, the NKJV Bible logo comes from the classic Masonic text, Duncan's Ritual of Freemasonry, which shows how the cryptic "Three Times Three” handclasp is performed in the Royal Arch Degree by three "brothers" of the Lodge. (See What about that "mysterious" symbol found on the NEW King James Bible?.)

What is this all mean to us? Again, we go back to what Apostle Paul said in I Timothy 4:1, where he said that in the latter days, some people will depart from the faith and giving heed to what Satan wants to offer to us. Jesus predicted this to His disciples before He went up to the Cross. Now, all the previous prophecies are revealed to us. As the prophecies are unfolds or beginning to have birth pain, we know that Jesus is coming closer and closer to gather His saints to take to His place before He would judge the whole nations of the earth.

Now, this is the time for us to wake up and recognize the Authorized Version of the Bible is the true representation of God’s Words. There is no error in this ancient English version of the Bible. Although the word “Easter” in KJV only once, it doesn’t mean that we need to celebrate Easter Sunday as Pagan does. The word “Easter” in Acts 12:4 KJV means “Passover.”

Are you saved? Are your love ones and friends saved in the grace of God through Jesus Christ? The purpose of this study is to help you to become closer relationship with Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3.)

If you are lukewarm in your relationship with Jesus Christ and want to know Him as your personal Savior and Lord of your life, please consider asking Him to forgive your sins and invite Him into your life. Paul says, "That if you confess with your mouth, `Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10.) If you have done in your private room or workplace, then you need to tell to your friends or love ones about what you have done, so they may rejoice with you and want to have that relationship with Christ in their own life. There are many occults in the world, which do not know the love of God and His great plan for those who believe in Him. As it is written in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EDT

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Today in our generation, we see that there are many bad news are appearing around the world. If we turn on the News or reading the daily newspaper, we see many tragedies on people, community, and country. If we turn on one of daily Talk Show programs, such as Jerry Springer’s Show, we see many families are breaking apart from each other because they cheat and fight each other within their homes. According to David Millers, a youth minister of Rock Church in Fredericksburg, Virginia , he pointed out that there were major declination rates of Christianity during the previous four generations. We, as Christians, went down from 60 percent in 1960s to only 4 percent in today’s generation.

Why? What is the reason of declination of Christianity?

According to the Book of Revelation, God will let the people would receive deception from Satan in the last day. Of course, this event would happen after the rapture of Church by God. I believe we are in the midst of it now before it would happen—the Antichrist would plan to make a peace treaty with for seven years, but he will break this treaty at the end of the first three and an half of seven years of the tribulation.

In this series, we will study five messages that we need to aware to receive deception. In this century, we would receive lie either from people who we love or people in the community. Sadly, we sometimes receive lies from the churches. For example, many church leaders may teach us that celebrating Easter and Christmas are to celebrate the birth, life, ministry, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, even though these two holidays were stolen from Babylonian holiday traditions, by the earliest Roman Catholic Popes.

First, I would like to discuss the “Basic Understanding of 1^st Timothy 4:1-3.” We need to understand the basic knowledge of Satan’s deception, so we can protect ourselves and loved ones and know what is the truth and what is not. Second is the “Deception from Modern Days of Bible Versions.” There are at least 200 new Bible versions published each year and most of them may misplace of words or verses for us to easy to understand and read God’s Words. I’m going to explain why the KJV is the only represented true to God’s Words. Third message is the “Women Preachers in the Church.” God gave different responsibilities for men and women to lead the household and church, but we lost the leadership position since Adam and Eve deceived by Satan. In this message, we will discover why the most male preachers avoid teaching us I Timothy 2:8-15 and allow women to lead the church congregations. Fourth message is called “Examination from the Movie, The Passion of Christ, to the Biblical View.” Most people believe that Mel Gibson’s version of the passion of Christ portrayed the accuracy from the four Gospels of Jesus Christ. Is the movie portrays the biblical view of passion of Christ? We will discover the real truth of behind Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of Christ. And last and final message is called “Deception in the End.” What would happen if the people receive the promise from Satan and decide to take the Mark of the Beast on their right hand or forehead? Is the number 666 real bad news for anyone who would be here when Antichrist would lead the New World Order, One World Currency, One World Government, and One World Religion?

Now, let’s read I Timothy 4:1-3:

Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. (NKJV)

In this passage, Apostle Paul warned us what the Spirit told him about in the latter days, which is now, because he wrote what the Spirit said in his time. As we read in verse 1, the Spirit predicted that there will be some of godly people will give up their faiths in God; instead, they will follow the doctrines of devils (KJV) and give their ears to deceiving spirits. Let us define the deceiving of spirits and doctrines of devils.

The deceiving of spirits and doctrines of devils has the same job, but the deceiving of spirits comes from us and not from Satan. Of course, we can receive spirits from Satan if we were not listening to the Holy Ghost that Jesus brought down to us. We each have spirit within ourselves, too, is called conscience. God gave us conscience, so that we can decide what is good or not for ourselves and in the eyes of God. But our spirits are not strong enough to grasp what is the truth, because we have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We can have conscious (spirits) alone, but that will make us dumb or doing stupid things. Without the Holy Ghost in us, we can deceive from ourselves and from others, even from Satan. Jesus said that He will bring us another Comforter that He may dwell in us and bring us to remembrance what Jesus told us (John 14:16-17, 26).

The doctrines of devils are the promises and truths, from Satan and his angels, which constrict with the Word of God. Their doctrines are all untrue. Since the serpent (Satan) deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3), we all have learned to lie or listened to the false promises and believe what the others or Satan said to us. The satanic doctrines come not from God, but from Satan himself. His goals are trying to deceive God’s people, so they can run away from Him as far as possible and let them find their ways to eternal death.

The method of deception that Satan is using from our habits, what we enjoy, what God gave to us, or in the media. There is nothing wrong what we like to do or what God gave to us. The Bible said that there is a time of laugh, receiving, playing that God gave us. But if Satan learn that our jobs are the most priority than to serve God, then he will use this method to trap us.

Another way that Satan uses to deceive the godly people is through your family, neighbors, friends, and/or co-workers to deny yourselves and your relationship with God and others. If you are a disabled person, for example, and your family would say that you cannot walk or become a career profession, you might feel down and believe what they said. That’s what Satan does to pull down on godly people. And nearly most children listen what the devil say through their well-known people. That’s why there are more homeless children throughout the world. That’s why the American people decide to enter the TV Talk Shows to deal with their problems and may decide to damage their relationship completely.

In the next verse, verse 2, said that speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron. The word “iron” is a heated metal implement used for branding or cauterizing. In I Timothy 4:2, to speak lies is like a really hot metal comes out of the mouth that it can destroy someone’s relationship. As we read in verse 3, Satan is trying to make us to do something that neglects the stuff that God created.

Even today, many of us don’t realize that the devils are still trying to deceive the people, especially those are within churches. Satan begins to deceive the people in the churches, because the church is where the people can to worship God as a unifying body. Now, the most churches can be found on the radio, TV, and web cast, because that’s where the church leaders can be popular to the world and makes a bigger profit of money. Most TV and radio ministries would possibly make almost to half of million dollars a year. This is not from God, but from Satan. Although God commanded us to go to the nations to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ, He didn’t say that we need to make a TV or radio ministry to reach the lost souls. Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, “Go…” It means that we need to use our feet to go to destination to reach the lost souls. If we’d decide to make a TV or radio ministry, it means that we don’t like to take a long destination to save the lost. Building a mega churches may seem okay, but it must build only for one main purpose and not because of TV or radio production.

Now, let us listen to what Matthew Henry, a great preach in 1600s/1700s, said on I Timothy 4:1-3. This quote is from Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706-1721).

“1. One of the great instances of the apostasy, namely, giving heed to doctrines of demons, or concerning demons; that is, those doctrines which teach the worship of saints and angels, as a middle sort of deities, between the immortal God and mortal men, such as the heathen called demons, and worshipped under that notion. Now this plainly agrees to the church of Rome, and it was one of the first steps towards that great apostasy, the enshrining of the relics of martyrs, paying divine honours to them, erecting altars, burning incense, consecrating images and temples, and making prayers and praises to the honour of saints departed. This demon-worship is paganism revived, the image of the first beast.

“2. The instruments of promoting and propagating this apostasy and delusion. (1.) It will be done by hypocrisy of those that speak lies, the agents and emissaries of Satan, who promote these delusions by lies and forgeries and pretended miracles, v. 2. It is done by their hypocrisy, professing honour to Christ, and yet at the same time fighting against all his anointed offices, and corrupting or profaning all his ordinances. This respects also the hypocrisy of those who have their consciences seared with a red-hot iron, who are perfectly lost to the very first principles of virtue and moral honesty. If men had not their consciences seared as with a hot iron, they could never maintain a power to dispense with oaths for the good of the catholic cause, could never maintain that no faith is to be kept with heretics, could never divest themselves of all remains of humanity and compassion, and clothe themselves with the most barbarous cruelty, under pretence of promoting the interest of the church. (2.) Another part of their character is that they forbid to marry, forbid their clergy to marry, and speak very reproachfully of marriage, though an ordinance of God; and that they command to abstain from meats, and place religion in such abstinence at certain times and seasons, only to exercise a tyranny over the consciences of men.

“3. On the whole observe, (1.) The apostasy of the latter times should not surprise us, because it was expressly foretold by the Spirit. (2.) The Spirit is God, otherwise he could not certainly foresee such distant events, which as to us are uncertain and contingent, depending on the tempers, humours, and lusts of men. (3.) The difference between the predictions of the Spirit and the oracles of the heathen is remarkable; the Spirit speaks expressly, but the oracles of the heathen were always doubtful and uncertain. (4.) It is comfortable to think that in such general apostasies all are not carried away, but only some. (5.) It is common for seducers and deceivers to pretend to the Spirit, which is a strong presumption that all are convinced that this is the most likely to work in us an approbation of what pretends to come from the Spirit. (6.) Men must be hardened, and their consciences seared, before they can depart from the faith, and draw in others to side with them. (7.) It is a sign that men have departed from the faith when they will command what God has forbidden, such as saint and angel or demon-worship; and forbid what God has allowed or commanded, such as marriage and meats.”

As we see, some churches have fall onto Satan’s traps, such as I described few on the preceding paragraphs. Why? Satan wanted to take control over the earth (see Isaiah 14:12-14). He wanted to take over God’s creation while he was at Garden of Eden and he is still trying to aim for taking control the earth. Now, he is trying to deceive Christians through Roman Catholicism (or Roman Empire , a pagan nation in Babylon ). If we study on this subject of study, we will find out the relationship between Roman Catholicism and Paganism, which it describes in Jeremiah 44.

Okay, let us stop here to define the word “deception” in I Timothy 4:1-3. Let’s now discuss how we can avoid from the satanic deception or deception from our minds or others.

First ones is this: Don’t let your conscience be your guidance of your soul. Our conscience is too weak to guide each of us. Even though our conscience is from God, He wants let us to make a decision for ourselves, but most of times we take turn to wrong path or -360 degree and that’s not from God.

Second: Don’t let your people deceive you through their words. If you want to know if your friend is speaking the truth or promise, you need to see their actions through their words. The word and action must always put together.

Third: Don’t let Satan comes to your life to deceive you. By doing that, you need to ask Jesus Christ comes into your life. Jesus says in John 10:10, “The thief (Satan) cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they (or you) might have life, and that they (or you) might have it more abundantly.”

Are you saved? Are your love ones and friends saved in the grace of God through Jesus Christ? The purpose of this study is to help you to become closer relationship with Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3.)

If you are lukewarm in your relationship with Jesus Christ and want to know Him as your personal Savior and Lord of your life, please consider asking Him to forgive your sins and invite Him into your life. Paul says, "That if you confess with your mouth, `Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10.) If you have done in your private room or workplace, then you need to tell to your friends or love ones about what you have done, so they may rejoice with you and want to have that relationship with Christ in their own life. There are many occults in the world, which do not know the love of God and His great plan for those who believe in Him. As it is written in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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Today in our world, there are many pastors proclaim that Jesus is our personal Savior. Yet, many Christian, even pastors and evangelists, may teach less on this general subject of the Gospel and would talk more on friendship of Jesus, who would help us to meet our needs, rather than the Lordship. Although Jesus is considered as our Friend, He is also our King and Lord. He is our Father to us. As I said in the previous message, He was existed before the world was born. He knows all about us individually well. I understand that this can be scary, especially those who are apart from God. But He knows us very well. Jeremiah 1:5 states that before Jeremiah was born, God knew him and what he was about to become. As we read his book, Jeremiah was a prophet of God throughout his life; and God used him to save His people from the captivity.

Although God can ignore His people from the torture until they would learn from their mistakes, He has compassion to give them another chance to fellowship with Him by using His prophets to rescue from the darkness. Even today, God uses pastors and evangelists, even false teachers, to reach the lost souls. Although false teachers sometime don’t know what they are doing, God can use them to reach the lost souls to receive them into Himself.

Who is Jesus to you? If He is just your Friend, you maybe in the dangerous situation in your Christian walk. You maybe in the situation where the devil can make more confuse you who Jesus is. But if Jesus is more than just a Friend to you, you are in a safe place where the devil cannot destroy you.

Now, let’s read our text in John 3:16-17.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

John 3:16 is very familiar verse in the entire Bible; even unbelievers can memorize this verse. But do we familiar with what the next verse says? According to John 3:17 says that God did not bring His Son, Jesus, to judge the world, but rescues the lost souls from the darkness. Now, don’t misunderstand that God would not judge the world. Yes, God will judge the world on the last day. But, in this text, it describes who Jesus is. He is the Savior of this world.

The reason we celebrate on His Resurrection Day and His birth, not because the rest of the world has these holidays, but because He is our Savior and King. Notice I didn’t say we celebrate on Easter Sunday and Christmas as Christian holidays tradition. If you thoroughly study on Easter and Christmas, you will find out these holidays came from the pagan religion, which God forbids for us to practice in our daily spiritual walk. Although Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Christmas came from the pagan ritual, we celebrate Resurrection Day and His birth only for one reason: Our Savior came to the world to save us from the darkness and lead us to the light—the light of the Kingdom of God .

Some of us may too attach to holidays that we may forget who Savior is. As we read the first four books of the New Testament, Jesus came to the world, as a babe, lived among us in His earthly body. Yet, He was in His flesh, He did not commit sins; instead, He went through suffering to pay our sins and lead us to the Light. Jesus did not just die for our sins, but with His compassion to save us from the darkness.

Let I ask you these questions:

• What if the stranger come and asks you about Jesus Christ? Would you willing to take moment to explain him about who Jesus is to you?
• What if the stranger rebukes you with cursing you and the name of Jesus, what would do?
• What if the evangelists tells you the other ways to Jesus, such as learn the Law of Reciprocity (related to tithing) and living a Christian life by reading more, pray more, and giving more?

There may be less Christians who are willing to take the first two questions, because most Christians would not like to take the risk with the strangers. But most Christians would take the third question seriously, because they want to have more blessings in their lives. Sadly, many world evangelists teach more on worldly Christian for them to learn quickest way to receive Jesus. But there is no easiest way to get into Heaven. We have to do the groundwork, such as the first two questions above. Get dirty. Make mistakes and learn the right way to handle the situation. If you feel lonely, depress, need someone with you everyday, call your Savior, Jesus, who is going to be right there with you all the way. If the stranger asks you about who Jesus is, let Jesus speak through you to the guy.

What if the stranger asks you who Jesus is? Would you answer him or ignore his question. It’s your choice to answer his question—whether you’d fail the test from God or get an “A”. Apostle Peter had this situation as he journeyed with the other apostles to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Jews and Gentiles. When somebody asks him a question, Peter was ready to give him the answer. Even though Peter denied three times who Jesus was, he learned from his mistakes and went forward to what Jesus called him to be. (Note: Peter was not first Pope, but one of Apostles, who first went to Gentile nations to proclaim the Gospel after Jesus ascended to Heaven.)

Are you ready to share the Gospel of Jesus to others? God calls us to be missionaries to proclaim who Savior Jesus is. Let’s do what He told us to do.

Are you saved? Are your love ones and friends saved in the grace of God through Jesus Christ? The purpose of this study is to help you to become closer relationship with Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3.)

If you are lukewarm in your relationship with Jesus Christ and want to know Him as your personal Savior and Lord of your life, please consider asking Him to forgive your sins and invite Him into your life. Paul says, "That if you confess with your mouth, `Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10.) If you have done in your private room or workplace, then you need to tell to your friends or love ones about what you have done, so they may rejoice with you and want to have that relationship with Christ in their own life. There are many occults in the world, which do not know the love of God and His great plan for those who believe in Him. As it is written in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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Most today’s people believe that there is a Supreme Being who watches over us. Unfortunately, most of unbelievers, even some Christians, don’t believe in hell and Satan. Is there really placed called Hell? Like the other, there is a very few of Christians who believe that we are getting closer to the end of the world. Although there are many people who professed to be Christians, few of us acknowledge and understand the truth and revelation of the Word of God.

As Paul says in II Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Although the Bible is a Jewish and Christianity history book, it also teaches us about whom God is, how we need to live for Him, and shows us our mistakes and teaches us the right way of handing the situation.

In this last part of the series, we will learn about how the Christianity became a popular to the today’s world and religion than in the early church era. We will study what is the myth that today’s most Christian treasure and what is the truth from God’s view.

Before we go into study, I would like to say to you that this subject of teaching is not popular known topic to today’s churches. Since the one of the earliest popes adopted the Babylonian tradition of holidays and other ritual practices to the Roman Catholicism and added to the Christianity, many today’s churches accepted the Catholic ways to celebrate them as Christian holidays, such as Halloween, Saint’s Day, Christmas, and Easter. Although Christians have the right to create holidays as long as we’d get approval from God, it is abomination from God that we can mix holiday with Paganism.

Paul says in II Corinthians 6:14, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?” None! Zero! Our God is a jealous God. The first three of the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5:7-11) tell us that we should give honor and praise God, who created the world and everything in the world. If we worship the other gods, our God would become jealous. Think about what if you find out your husband/wife cheats on you with the other guy/woman? Would this make you jealous? This is the same way about God. He loves us very much that He chooses His Son to be sacrificial offering to pay debts for our sin. If we worship the other gods, He would become sad, angry, and disappoint to see that His children would decide to change their identities.

Not only we will look to holidays to discover God’s truth, we also will look into today’s Christian teaching, media, entertainment, and music. We need to understand what’s going on the world, so that we may not be deceived from the devil’s trap. We also need this kind of teaching in our life: to prepare the Lord’s coming; to prepare to give out the answers from whatever people ask on End Time; and to prepare for the battle against Satan.

Before I came to realize that Christmas, Easter, and Halloween are Pagan holidays, I didn’t know the real meaning of holidays rather than they were Christian traditions. Within couple months after the 9/11 tragedy, one of my Christian elder brothers began to show me and explain to me about many Scriptures about the end time and how 9/11 tragedy effected to the preparation of the coming of Antichrist. In fact, my friend and I were terrified at Recreation Center of Woodrow Wilson Rehab Center to see that our country attacked by some religious leaders on that tragedy day.

One of the passages that my friends shared with me was Jeremiah 10, one of Babylonian holiday traditions that Israelites practiced as part of worshipping pagan gods. As my friend read this passage to me, he explained how Jeremiah 10:3-4 effect to one of our modern day’s holiday tradition, which I will explain it later. As I spent search God’s Word more with the help of my friend, I began to understand that we are getting closer to the end of our age.

In the message, which I’m going to share with you, it may surprise you or make disbelief on the subjects. If that happen, I recommend you to begin search the Scripture before you’d decide to ask me some of your questions or looking for other resources of information. God has the final authority over everything.

Let’s begin to discuss on Christmas and Jesus’ birth.

Many people believe that Christmas is a time for shopping, family and friends gathering, exchanging the gifts each other, and etc. If you are a Christian you may have learned that Christmas is Jesus’ birthday. Well, this may surprise you that Christmas was not originated from Jesus Christ’s birth, but from the Pagan religion. Let’s look some points:

First, the word “Christmas” cannot be found in the Bible and in the Hebrew or Greek manuscript or picture of it from the Scripture. Many people, even bible scholars, believe that Christmas is coming from Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2, which is incorrect. If we split the word “Christmas,” we will come with CHRIST-MAS or CHRIST’S MASS, which the Roman Catholic’s special mass performed in celebrating Christ’s birth. “In this mass, Jesus is considered both the priest and the victim, represented by the Catholic priest who offers Him as a sacrifice each time the mass is performed. In offering this "sacrifice," the priest believes he has the power to change the bread and the wine of the Communion into Jesus' literal flesh and blood, requiring the people to worship these elements as they do God Himself. This is obviously a denial of the gospel, and thereby, a false gospel (a re-doing of the sacrifice for sin—Heb. 9:12, 24-26; 10:10, 12, 14). Yet, many who cry out all year long against the blasphemous Roman Catholic system, at year-end embrace Rome 's most blasphemous abomination of them all—Christmas!” (See Should a Christian Celebrate Christmas?)

Second, Jesus didn’t come to the earth during the winter season. If we read about the angels’ announcement to the shepherds about Jesus (Luke 2:8-14), shepherds couldn’t watch the sheep outside if it was in the winter season. Catholic Pope selected December 25 as Jesus’ birthday, because this day of the month was the celebration of Natalis Solis Invicti, the Birthday of the Unconquerable Sun. “In order to make Christianity palatable to the heathen, the Roman Church simply took Saturnalia, adopted it into Christianity, and then eventually many of the associated pagan symbols, forms, customs, and traditions were reinterpreted (i.e., "Christianized") in ways "acceptable" to Christian faith and practice. (In fact, in 375 A.D., the Church of Rome under Pope Julius I merely announced that the birth date of Christ had been "discovered" to be December 25th, and was accepted as such by the "faithful." The festival of Saturnalia and the birthday of Mithras could now be celebrated as the birthday of Christ!) The pagans flocked into the Catholic places of worship, because they were still able to worship their old gods, but merely under different names. It mattered not to them whether they worshiped the Egyptian goddess mother and her child under the old names (Isis and Horus), or under the names of the "Virgin Mary" and the "Christ-child." Either way, it was the same old idol-religion (cf. 1 Thes. 1:8-10; 5:22 -- Paul says to turn from idols, not rename them and Christianize them). Roman Catholicism's Christmas Day is nothing but "baptized" paganism, having come along much too late to be part of "the faith once delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3).” (See Should a Christian Celebrate Christmas?)

According to Lee Strobe, a Christian author of Case of Christmas, after his research on the virgin birth of Jesus, he believes that Christ was born between April 20 and May in between 6 and 3 B.C. This also can approve by Luke’s account, which I gave this above.

Lastly, Christmas tree and decoration have nothing to do with Jesus’ birth. Jesus didn’t die on the tree, but on the Cross that was made of a tree. When I read Jeremiah 10:3-4, I was first surprised about how Israelites worshipped the tree with the decoration on it, which it was the same method that we are doing over 1500 years. Having a Christmas tree in our houses is represented the nature of god that the Israelites practiced to avoid God the Almighty.

Also, we need to understand about Jesus’ earthly life and ministry is His death and resurrection, which we recognize it as Holy Week, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. We most misinterpret His final week of ministry over 1500 years due to Roman Catholic converted to Christianity as they still carried the pagan belief system.

In KJV, the word “Easter” refers to Passover and it only mentions once in entire books of KJV Bible, which is in Acts 12:4. Otherwise, the word “Easter” in pagan term was from Eostare, pagan goddess. (See Should Christians Observe Easter)

Most of us believe that His final week of ministry began on Sunday, the week of Good Friday, which is March/April. If we read all the four Gospels, especially in the Gospel of John, there is no verse that Jesus didn’t enter Jerusalem for Passover Feast on the first day of the week, Sunday. Yes, Jesus started to go to Jerusalem six days before the Passover Feast (John 12:1), but it wasn’t on Sunday.

According to Jewish calendar, the Passover Feast was held on the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan (March/April) (see Exodus 12), which was probably on Wednesday (before the actual Sabbath began). If this is case, Jesus went to Jerusalem on the week of next Wednesday.

I believe this because if Jesus died on Friday evening (6:01 PM), this would mean that He broke the Sabbath tradition, because Sabbath is actually began on Friday at 6:01 PM and ended on Saturday at 6:00 PM. We must remember that Jesus’ death represents the Passover the Lamb and Jews cannot sacrifice anything on Sabbath day until the day is over.

Also, Jesus must meet the requirement of sacrifice the Passover the lamb. If He went to His grave on Friday at 6:01 PM and resurrected on Sunday at 6:00 AM, that meant that He was in the heart of the earth (not in hell) for 1 ½ day. Remember that Jesus said He will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights (see Matthew 12:39-41), that is full 72 hours (24-hour a day x 3 days). If Jesus went to His grave on Thursday at 6:01 PM and resurrected on Saturday at 6:00 PM, this meant that He met the requirement of Passover Lamb.

Although Christmas and Easter have many ritual practices that are nowhere we can find in the Bible, these are few errors that we still value to try to honor God in the Church. Even though we cannot recognize whether the ritual comes from God or the other religious system, God is still giving some times to us to repent from our errors.

Now, let’s go forward with this subject and discuss about teachings on the Media. By now, Christianity is on the third place of the four greatest world religions: Roman Catholicism, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Notice, I put Roman Catholicism as individual religious group and not in Christianity and put in the number one on the top four. Why? If you understand Catholicism, you will find there are many misconceptions on Christianity that we cannot find in the Holy Bible, such as Prayer of Rosary and Jesus hang and naked on the cross at the front of church sanctuary. Most today’s Christian holidays arrived from Roman Catholicism. Also, many people already accepted and followed Roman Catholicism as Christianity.

There are some Christian churches still carried teachings from Roman Catholicism. For example, Bruce Wilkson, a Christian author of The Prayer of Jabez. His teaching on prayer is the similar method that Roman Catholicism used: repeating same prayer for thirty straight days. It’s great that we repeat our prayer to God in different ways each day, but we should not limit our prayer into a month long and repeat same words of prayer to get our blessings from Him.

If we read Matthew 6:9-13 on Disciples’ Prayer (not the Lord’s Prayer), Jesus didn’t say that we need to repeat the words of prayer, but in this manner (Matthew 6:9 NKJV) or approach: 1) give honor and praise to God, 2) pray for other and ourselves, and 3) give honor and praise to God.

Most today’s churches teach on the subject of Christian living, such as family, marriage, finance, and gaining more blessings from God. Please don’t misunderstand and think that I am against on this subject. Even though we need to study about Christian living, there are a lot preachers who teaching on this for ourselves only. That’s self-fish.

To get better understand on Christian living, we must interpret the Scripture word for word in the Bible. We don’t need to add another word or another version of the Bible to make ourselves understand. No! There are about more than 200 new Bible versions in a year in the alone, but we may use certain Bible versions for our own understanding or belief or other reason. (I am currently used the both KJV and NKJV (similar to KJV), because they came from the original Hebrew and Greek manuscript, which was ancient, to get better understanding God’s Word. Others, such as NIV, NCV, and NLT, are from the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, but the scribe scholars may use the latest manuscript or plain English dictionary, which it may not agree with the original meaning.) Also, we need to apply on the teaching of Christian living from God’s point of view, not from ours. That is why some churches decide to not to do the TV or radio evangelism. If the church may decide to do on TV or radio evangelism outreach, their goals may change—more focus on money to keep the business running and less on the reaching for the lost souls to Jesus Christ.

Lastly, Christian entertainment and music industries.

By now, there are millions of Christian music, TV shows, movies, and games for Christians to entertain. Some are good and some are bad. We see that many secular singers/artists are converted into Christianity and appear on the Christian channels, such as Mr. T, Tia and Tamara Mowry, M.C. Hammer, and many others. Even we see that many Christian movies are appearing on the public theaters, such as The Passion (February 2004), The Gospel (Fall 2005), and The Chronicles of Narnia (December 2005); and as a result they made some millions of dollars in profit.

Why?

They often mix Christian entertainment with their own works or other resources to go with the Bible. For example, The Chronicles of Narnia—that is based on Fall of Man (Genesis 3) and the gift of salvation from Jesus Christ. This movie was based on books by C.S. Lewis and it was made for whole family. Even C.S. was a pastor, his books are secular view. In the movie, there is twisted view of Fall of Man and the gift of salvation and it contains some witchcraft. Many people like the movies that are Christians, because the movies speak their language of words and appearances and less from God’s perspective. This is the same way about Christian music—mixed with worldly tune or beats.

There is not much of time left before God would judge the world. As we see on the media, there are a lot of bad news on the TV, radio, and newspaper. But God is holding up to bring down judgment on earth until every person would repent their sins and join with Him forever. It is up to make that decision.

Are you saved? Are your love ones and friends saved in the grace of God through Jesus Christ? The purpose of this study is to help you to become closer relationship with Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3.)

If you are lukewarm in your relationship with Jesus Christ and want to know Him as your personal Savior and Lord of your life, please consider asking Him to forgive your sins and invite Him into your life. Paul says, "That if you confess with your mouth, `Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10.) If you have done in your private room or workplace, then you need to tell to your friends or love ones about what you have done, so they may rejoice with you and want to have that relationship with Christ in their own life. There are many occults in the world, which do not know the love of God and His great plan for those who believe in Him. As it is written in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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Most historian scholars believe that Jesus was the greatest teacher in the early AD. The History Channel shows that He was the greatest prophet in the early church era. Just like Pharisees, many today’s people believe that Jesus was the one of us, but he was the greatest teacher that we had in the history. Was Jesus the greatest teacher that we had in the world history? Or He also was the God of the Bible, who came to the world and paid our debt of sins on the cross 2000 years ago? What does the Bible say about Him?

Throughout the Old Testament era, many people of believed that there will be Messiah coming down to the earth and would live among them. Moses, Elijah, Micah, and other greatest prophets of the Old Testament, even King David, proclaimed that there will be the one true Messiah will appear to the world in near future. I don’t believe that God didn’t silence during the last 400 years before the New Testament era would begin. Although we don’t have record on the last 400 years of the Old Testament, I believe that God was still speaking in each of His children individually.

Yet, some today’s Christians don’t understand that Jesus was more than a greatest teacher as He is in our generation. Most Catholic believe that Jesus was the Son of Virgin Mother Mary, but they refuse to believe Jesus is the God and there is nothing beside Him, such as Virgin Mother Mary—Queen of Heaven (see Jeremiah 44).

Let’s read John 1:1-5 and discover that Jesus is the light of the world.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

As we read in this passage, John said that there was somebody on the universe in the beginning of time. In Genesis 1:1, the book begins by saying “In the beginning God…” But here, John begins “In the beginning was the Word…” John uses Genesis 1:1 to clarify who God is. In his case was the Word. That is God’s spoken Word. The Bible says that God spoke the Word to create this world as we read in Genesis 1. His Word is so powerful to use to create us and to use defeat Satan (Matthew 4:1-11).

Now, let’s focus on the verse 2, He was in the beginning with God. In this verse, John speaks about the Second Person of Trinity, which is the Son. Now, don’t misinterpret this. I understand that some preachers have hard time to interpret John 1:2. John doesn’t say that there is another god in the Trinity. Although the Second Person of Trinity is Jesus Christ, He is the same God that we studied about in John 1:1 and in the Old Testament. We cannot separate God the Father and God the Son in two different places, because they work together, include God the Holy Spirit, as unity. I do believe that Jesus was in the beginning with God, especially when we see a capital U in the word “Us” in Genesis 1.

In the verse 3 makes clear that Jesus was God the Father’s agent involved in creating everything in the universe. Paul says in Colossians 1:16-17, “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.” And the author in Hebrews 1:2, “…has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds…”

Many scientists believe that there is a Big Bang Theory, which it was explored to form the universe. Although that is quite impossible to create the world by itself as evolution suggest, there was somebody outer space who spoke the Word to begin to form the universe. If there was not spoken word before the creation, why can we speak today? There is no need to have theory to approve that the spoken Word existed in the beginning of the world.

Now, let’s discuss about the Light, which is the current topic in the message.

In the verse 4 of John 1, John indicates that Jesus came to the world as Light. This is the pre-incarnate work of Christ. Why he used the word “light” to describe Jesus Christ? If we revisit the Old Testament history, God’s people were in darkness—corrupted by sins nature, so they cannot see the light of other side. Isaiah 9:2 predicted that those who walked in darkness have seen a great light, which will be the coming of Messiah, Jesus Christ. If we don’t have Jesus Christ in our lives, we would be still in the darkness of sins.

According to the first part of John 1:4 indicates that in Him was life. Jesus Christ was the life giver and He still is. He gave us life by dying at the cross. Throughout the Gospel of John, we will see that He is the life giver and the direction to the light to eternality. As we read verse 5, the darkness cannot comprehend the light. It cannot destroy the power of light, because it has so much of energy. If we close to the sun, for example, we will surely die and burn.

Also, we need to understand that the power of Light can defeat the darkness. Just as the power of darkness cannot have the victory over the light, Satan cannot defeat us easily if we close to Jesus and fight with Him.

What we do now as believers of Jesus Christ?

We understand that living earthly life for Christ is not easy to do. Look around our communities and other parts of world. There are more divorce rates in Christian home than within non-Christian homes. Many teenagers are getting lost to reach their goals because their parents are wrestling each other and decide to divorce as a result. Many natural disasters are occurring in the every year and they are getting bigger. The enemies of are preparing for war to against God’s land as the prophecy is unfold. Jesus said in Matthew 24:14, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come.”

Who are witnesses in our generation before the Lord returns? We know that there are many preachers and missionaries around the globe today. But the Bible says that they are several false witnesses who proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and deceive many. I am trying not to watch many Christian programs, but hear from God directly. We need to learn to hear from God directly if we like to become truly witnesses for Jesus Christ.

Jesus taught us to be the salt and light of the world (Matthew 5:13-16). I am not talking about becoming fame as Bill Gates or Dr. Oral Roberts, but witness for Christ. We do not need to earn Bachelor college degree or build the Bible University to become a witness for Jesus Christ. I thank God for Bible Colleges or Universities to equip us more about God’s words, but we need to be ready to share God’s Word to others, no matter what ages we are or how far we educated. God can use even a 4-year old child to proclaim His words to others.

Are you ready to be a witness for Jesus Christ to reach the lost souls? I heard that many Christian students are suffering for Christ in their public campuses, because their schools are not allowing let Christians share their faiths, except for those who are not Christians. During the Columbine Littleton High School shooting in April 1999, one of Christian girls, Rachael, died by the one of gunmen by testing her faith. She died for Christ when the gunman asked her if she believes in Jesus Christ. Although the risk was high, she received the victory for Jesus Chris.

Are you ready if Satan would come to test your faith? If you are not sure to be a witness for Jesus Christ, please make your right decision as you are alive today.

Are you saved? Are your love ones and friends saved in the grace of God through Jesus Christ? The purpose of this study is to help you to become closer relationship with Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3.)

If you are lukewarm in your relationship with Jesus Christ and want to know Him as your personal Savior and Lord of your life, please consider asking Him to forgive your sins and invite Him into your life. Paul says, "That if you confess with your mouth, `Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10.) If you have done in your private room or workplace, then you need to tell to your friends or love ones about what you have done, so they may rejoice with you and want to have that relationship with Christ in their own life. There are many occults in the world, which do not know the love of God and His great plan for those who believe in Him. As it is written in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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Have we imagined what would Jesus look like? Sure, many people tried to picture Jesus as one of us and make some movies about Him. Some people painted Him as America-Africa person or one of Jews. Is paining a picture of Jesus important than believe His Words in our hearts? Although His disciples and others saw Him in their time, we can picture Him as we read through Scriptures.

As we begin the new series, the Bible has all the information about Jesus. The first part of this message series is He is the “I Am.” Gospel of John has many Scriptures that Jesus said “I Am.” There are at least twenty-three verses in the Gospel of John that we find our Lord’s meaningful “I Am.” In Greek, it translates ego eimi. Throughout the Bible, God called Himself “I Am”—“I Am the Lord,” “I Am God,” “I Am the Shepherd.” God is telling us who He is. In Catholic version of Jesus is the Son of Virgin Mary, which is true in physical sense (He was born from Mary), but it’s not totally true. If we read in Luke 1, the Angel of the Lord announced to Mary that God will bring His Son through her. The Catholic version of Mother of Jesus comes from the pagan religion in Jeremiah 44 as the “queen of heaven.”

Let’s turn our text to John 14:6 and read: Jesus said to him [Apostle Thomas], “I am the way, the true, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

In this verse, Jesus explained to Thomas that He is the example of His Father. In the first four verses in John 14, Jesus gave some comfort to His disciples that He is going away from them to prepare a place for them. He didn’t say that He would go away for good. Read verse 3. He indicated that He will come back to take them home. Of course, John 14:1-4 is talking about the rapture of the Church that Jesus promised to every believer. But it’s more than the future rapture of the Church or only for His disciples. Revelation 3:20 says that Jesus is knocking the door of our hearts to live with you and me. The only He can come in each of us, we invite Him. If you like to receive the gift of peace from Him, let Him to come to your life and live with you.

Then in John 14:5, Thomas asked Jesus about where He is going. Do you hate if your friend would not tell you where he would be going? You might. But as we read John 14, Thomas missed what Jesus told him. “Lord! Where are you going? How can we know the way to reach You?” we might ask.

Then He might answer, “You know the place where I’m going. I already told you. Do you listen to Me?” Are we listening to Jesus when He would talk to each of us softly? We might think it is impossible, because of noise. Don’t blame noise to excuse yourself from the words of Jesus. There is no excuse if you are a child of God. Listen to what He said. You have the material that you need to grow in His family. You have been trained well to communicate with God.

But..

Jesus said again clearly to Thomas’ question: “I am the way, the true, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” He is the way to looking where God is going. He is the way to find the absolute truth to our questions. He is the way to find life. And there is no other ways to go to God, except through Jesus Christ. Acts 4:12 indicates that there is no other names under heaven to give us the salvation. Not Allah, nor Buddha, nor Toa.

Jesus says, “I am the answer to all your needs.” There is nothing He cannot do. Some Christian movies may show that Jesus failed down many times to get approve His embarrassment. But we have the approval that He is not a failure to get job done—the Bible. He is working on us and with us each day to go through many challenges. Even though many people are stuck in Gulf Coast by Katrina, Jesus is still doing miracles in each of them.

Even though you are in situation where you cannot free from alcohol, cigarette, material possession, etc., I would like to tell you that there is the way that you can set free from all these junks in your life. That is through only one Person, Jesus Christ. He is the “I Am.”

If you want to know the way to get to success, call Jesus and let Him show the path. If you want to find happiness in your life, go to Jesus and begin to celebrate your life with Him. If you want to find healer to your illness, go to Dr. Jesus by asking Him through prayer. There is no such person who has all the answers to our needs than through Jesus Christ. Paul says in Ephesians 3:20 (KJV), “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us…”

I know many of us watched and heard about a commercial ad on the Psychic Network. Even though this service would provide people services to resolve their issues, it’s all about money and provide fake service to the community. A founder of CBN, Pat Robertson, indicated that only one percent of thousands people received the answer from Psychic Network Reading. Why? First, this service comes from the religion of witchcraft and from the false prophet (Deuteronomy 13). Second, it’s forbidden by God’s Word. If we want to interpret our dreams or desires, then go to Jesus Christ who has all the answers. Psychic Network Reading or reading a horoscope message from the fortune cookie or newspaper does not help us to reach our destiny.

Jesus is our daily Bread of life (John 6:35, 41, 48, 51). The Bread represents as the body. When Jesus gave bread to His disciples before His crucifixion, He told them the bread symbolized for His body (Matthew 26:26). He gave His life at the cross to give us life from the darkness. Yet, we might forget why we have communion with other believers sometime. Maybe we are too busy to remember what kind of the message behind the bread as we have the Holy Communion with the church members. It’s more than Jesus gave His life for us. He gave us a new life spiritually as He died for our sins. Paul says in I Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

Do you like to change your life around as whole 360 degree? Winning your life for Jesus Christ is not easy to pass through alone. But we need to give up our wills and willing to exchange wills with God. God says in Ezekiel 36:26, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” The heart of stone is really like icicle that we cannot feel to love, how to cry, and knowing which way is doing right or wrong. But having a heart of flesh means that we can feel all of the feelings that God gave us.

Even though I don’t know all your circumstances, this message may speak to you or someone who needs Jesus Christ. There is a hope, not in this world, but in God. If you like Jesus to come in your life, just accept Him as just as you are, and surrender your life to Him by confess your sins and ask for forgiveness. You do not have to know the repentance prayer formula, because there is none.

Jesus says, “I am ______________.” Read through the Gospel of John and fill the word in the blank, and see who Jesus is.

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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Have we enough to go through the problem in our life? How many of us to have some difficult time in life? Of course, we all have problems in our everyday life. There is no person who hadn’t faced the circumstance in his life. Even Jesus had experienced all kinds of problems while he lived with His people (Matthew; Mark; Luke; John). But He conquered all of His problems with the help from His Heavenly Father.

When we have problems, where do we go to seek counsel? When we don’t feel like to serve God, what would we do? Most people seek counsel from alcohols, bar, sex, TV, movie, music, family, and/or friends when they would get stress. And the youngest people are seeking help from these items/groups when they’d get peer pressure. As long as they’d get what they want to be cured from stress, they’d feel satisfy for while.

We, too, are in a war zone. We are in a war zone that Satan can attack us to lead us to his kingdom, Hell. We are in a war zone that we might turn ourselves from God and begin to serve Satan. We are in a war zone that Satan can defeat us. We are in a war zone that we can defeat Satan with the power of God for good.

David didn’t look at Goliath with the weapon to get chance to win in the battleground, but he looked up to the Author and Finisher of his faith (cf. Hebrews 12:2) to defeat the giant at the front of his thousand enemies. What cause David to defeat Goliath? Was his faith? Was his reliable God?

Read with me in I Samuel 17:45-48.

Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you. And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. Then all this assembly shall know that the LORD does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is the LORD’s, and He will give you into our hands.”

So it was, when the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, that David hurried and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine.

Just like David, we are in a war zone—war zone to fight against the power of darkness. But we are not in the battleground alone, God is with us.

Some of us may face different kinds of problems in our lives than what David faced. Whether we face the problem that is small or big, God can help us to overcome these battles. Paul says we are not fight against another human being, but against the power of darkness (Ephesians 6:12). Sure, our people would sometime to decide to against us, even from our own family, but we are not alone to go out to fight our own battle. If we make a war cry to God, He can help us in the time of our needs. Look what Joshua and his people did to possess the land of Jericho (Joshua 6). The people of Israel walked around the wall of Jericho, for seven days, and made the trumpets sound to worship God to destroy the people in the land to possess it. The number seven stands for perfection. God created the world in six days and He rested on the seventh day, because He saw His handwork perfectly and rest after the six days.

Are we on the point where we would have perfect life? Some of us may think so. They may think that they can live perfectly as long as they can have what they want. But I have sad news for those who would want to live perfectly. There is no such thing “perfect life.” Although Bill Gates lives as a rich business man, he is still poor than the rest of homeless people, unless he already has developed his relationship with Jesus Christ.

Worship God with all your soul, heart, and strength to overcome your obstacles. Sing a new song and praise to God to win for your victory in Jesus Christ. As one of Baptist songs says,

Victory, victory, victory in Jesus!
Sing His overcoming blood, sing the grace that frees us;
Ring it out more boldly, song of faith and cheer,
Till the whole wide world shall hear.

O’er the pow’rs of darkness, o’er the hosts of sin,
Victory in Jesus, victory!
Trusting, watching, praying, we shall surely win,
Victory in Jesus evermore.

Refrain

Send the happy watchword all along the line,
Victory in Jesus, victory!
Let all error perish, lives the truth divine,
Victory in Jesus evermore.

Song created by Eliza E. Hewii (1851-1920)

So where are you? If you are in a war zone, how you can set free from the battleground? What if your family members decide to forsake you because God gave you more revelation to His word, and you don’t agree what your family interprets from the Scripture or some other reasons? Even your family may decide to forsake you, the Bible says, and then God will take care of you (Psalm 27:10).

Who are you? As you read this message, you may think this is unreal that we are in a spiritual war. It doesn’t matter what we think, the battle is happening in each individual’s soul. Look what’s happening on kids. Many movies and books on Harry Potter have impacted on kids’ souls. They want more fantasy and magic in their lives rather than soul nutrition from God’s Words. Teenagers may have been seeking for sex and drug to fill their empty souls. What are we going to do about these issues on our young people?

We can help them to fight their spiritual battle in Jesus Christ. We also can help to have their relationship with Jesus Christ. There are no other greatest gifts than to introduce them Jesus Christ. Young people are God’s children and the next generation leaders for their country.

Worship God and sing a praise song to Him to fight the battle for your eternal destiny.

Are you saved? Are your love ones and friends saved in the grace of God through Jesus Christ? The purpose of this study is to help you to become closer relationship with Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3.)

If you are lukewarm in your relationship with Jesus Christ and want to know Him as your personal Savior and Lord of your life, please consider asking Him to forgive your sins and invite Him into your life. Paul says, "That if you confess with your mouth, `Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10.) If you have done in your private room or workplace, then you need to tell to your friends or love ones about what you have done, so they may rejoice with you and want to have that relationship with Christ in their own life. There are many occults in the world, which do not know the love of God and His great plan for those who believe in Him. As it is written in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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Everyone is on a spiritual journey as they travel through life. Each of us has our own way to reach the goal of lifetime. Whether religious or not, we travel a spiritual path; every day we make choices that affects the direction in which we are headed.

On the last message, we studied about the “Courtroom of Eternality.” In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus gave us a clue on how many people would go to Heaven and Hell according to each individual verdict from how Lord Jesus Christ would judge each of them. Many people think that the paths we can travel are many. In one sense that may be true; there are all kinds of religions, but in another sense there are really only two paths or ways.

Since we looked in Matthew 7:13-14 with the view of Heaven and Hell, let’s study on the application of it. I understand that most of us may hear on the Hell and Heaven from our local churches few times in our lifetimes, because of these reasons:

1) Preachers may do not like to teach on the topics that speak on the conviction of their sins, because they would like to keep their people to run the businesses, such as:

· Hell & Heaven (talk more on Heaven and less on Hell)

· White throne judgment

· False doctrines, teachers, and prophets

· Last Day of the Earth (they would expand the day into many thousands years rather than it’s process in our generation)

2) We would like to hear messages that are smooth and soft.

3) We would not like to recognize our sins.

These or more reasons that some pastors may do not preach on subjects that would be harmful to them and the rest of the church. But, God is recommending us to learn what is hidden on the other side of Heaven. If we don’t learn what is right from wrong, how we would suppose to know the right way of handling our situations.

In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus spoke the one of two ways to enter His Kingdom and another way to go to Hell. Each with its own beginning, each with its own end; and one way is heavily populated; the other is traveled by few.

Where are you? Which road that you would be taking? It’s interested that the most of people go for the wrong way to handle the situation. Remember that most people were panic about the Y2K computer system problem in 1999. Most people worried about the digits in date on the computer when the year 2000 would arrive. They believed that when it would be January 1, 2000, the digits on the computer would recognize the year 1900 when the date would print as 1/1/00, which it would conflict our economic system. As a result, there weren’t any issue after the first couple months of 2000 passed by.

Now, let’s read Matthew 7:13-14 again to set this topic.

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

As we read in this passage, there are two gates to the eternity, two ways, two sets of group of people, and two destinations. Now, look these phrases that came out from the two verses of Matthew 7. This is the basic process for us to learn about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Heaven and Hell. If the Hell wouldn’t exist, why do we need to learn on the two ways of living? It wouldn’t make sense for us to educate on the subject. Since Eve and Adam disobeyed God (Genesis 3), we are living on one of two ways of life—good or bad, smart or dumb, godly or ungodly, being like child of God or being like child of Satan.

Let’s first study on the two gates in Matthew 7. Jesus says that going to wide gate of eternality is bad choice to live the everlasting life. Why? The wide gate is easy to receive the invitation to Hell, because there is no standard of regulation. People don’t have to wait on a long line to accept invitation. Like in the big city, such as Las Vegas, there are many places they can go and entertain themselves without worry about the risk they involve. But, on a narrow gate, they can focus more on their main goals. With receiving some instructions from teachers, they can gain more skills to meet their dreams. If we decide to go to the narrow gate of eternality, we can go closer to Jesus Christ and spend the eternality with Him.

Two ways: the broad and constrict ways. Living a life in the broad way makes people set free. They can live any behavior and lifestyle they want to live until they died. Like they would decide to enter the wide gate, they feel that they do not need to change their goals or hearts to go after Jesus Christ. For instant, you may decide to play the lottery machine to try to win $1 million. If you keep play the lottery game until you’d get the $1 million, you might have a chance to loose all the money you have and become poor, because you keep putting your money in one machine. Sadly, many people love this path until they would realize that the broad way leads to destruction of life.

Now, let’s talk about the constrict way. Living a constrict way of life requires our individual effort to reach our goals. Matthew 7:14 said that this is the way to enter God’s Kingdom. This is the way because it requires a righteousness that exceeds that of many religious people (Matthew 5:20) and a change in our behavior (cf. Matthew 5:21-7:12). If we study for the college exam, we will get a chance to receive the perfect score, for example. God wants us to live in a constrict way of life to reach to Him, such as being like Christ.

Two groups of people. Psalm 1 tells us that there are two groups of people are living this world. The people who are godly (Psalm 1:1-3); and who are ungodly (Psalm 1:4-6). The people who are godly find God’s blessing in Him and ungodly finds curse (cf. Deuteronomy 28). Ungodly people find destruction in their lives, although their ways may seem to be easy and smooth; and godly people finds abundant harvest in their lives, even though they may seem to go through rough and hard roads.

Read about the life of Job. He faced many tragedies in his life, because God and Satan were at the battleground (Job 1-2). Even though he received many accusations from his friends to help him (Job 4-5; 8; 11; 15; 18; 20; 22; 25; 32-37; 38:1-40:2; 40:6-41:34), Job didn’t let deceptive words come into his life. He trusted on God. In the beginning of the Book of Job, he lived as a rich man and became homeless, but at the end of his book, God gave him more blessings than in the first chapter of the book.

Which group of people are you? Do you focus more on the way of world or on the way of God? The world has so much to offer something to you, but it will not be lasted. We cannot take our physical things, even our bodies, to the eternality.

Two destination points. Where are you going with all your accomplishments in schools and colleges? There are only two destinations in our life and there is no middle ground. We can accomplish anything if we put ourselves together, but we can go any directions that we would like with our accomplishments. We can go to music industries and make big buck as career. But how we would perform our music to the public viewers is another challenge. We can use our music to bring people into destruction or give them life. If we would use the music that is destruction, we wouldn’t go our career further; destination would come to end. If we use in other way, we are reaching our destination much further.

We are living in a war zone with two masters of this world, Jesus and Satan. If we want to go to our destinations to reach Jesus Christ, even though the road is rough, we are heading toward to the eternal life and celebration. If we to go to our destinations to reach Satan, because the road is easy and wide, we are heading toward to the eternal torment.

Where are you going to spend eternality? Hope that we make a wise decision before Jesus Christ comes to rapture the Church and judge the rest of the world.

Are you saved? Are your love ones and friends saved in the grace of God through Jesus Christ? The purpose of this study is to help you to become closer relationship with Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3.)

If you are lukewarm in your relationship with Jesus Christ and want to know Him as your personal Savior and Lord of your life, please consider asking Him to forgive your sins and invite Him into your life. Paul says, "That if you confess with your mouth, `Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10.) If you have done in your private room or workplace, then you need to tell to your friends or love ones about what you have done, so they may rejoice with you and want to have that relationship with Christ in their own life. There are many occults in the world, which do not know the love of God and His great plan for those who believe in Him. As it is written in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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Have you wonder where you would do after you die? Many people believe that after facing the death bed, they are sure that they will go to Heaven. Few of them said that they will go to the other side of the eternal place, Hell. Does the place called, Heaven, is for everybody? If the person would decide to take alcohol and tobacco for the rest of his life, would God take him to Heaven? Just think moment as if you are in his shoe.

The Bible says that on one final day of earth, there will be a court session that we must face before we would enter in one of two eternal gates. One of two gates will lead us to life and another leads us into destruction.

Let’s read Matthew 7:13-14:

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

In this text, Jesus gave us glimpse of how many would enter the Heaven. As we see, there will not many of them able to make to the eternal rest. Some people might say, “We thought a wide gate will lead us to Heaven, but not narrow. Narrow gate is for wimps.” No! Let me explain why the narrow gate is the key to Heaven.

Before we would detour Heaven and Hell, let’s go to the courtroom and understand why we need go through this place.

Before we would enter our eternal home, there will be a court session with God. Unlike the other courts, Jesus will become our defensive attorney or offensive. He will judge us according to our gifts of salvation that He gave us. In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus explains who will enter the kingdom of Heaven:

“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’

“Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’

“Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’

“Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Often, many of us believe that God will give us blessing if we would tithe every Sunday. Although this is the biblical principle, He doesn’t care how much of money we give every Sunday to get access Heaven. He only cares what you are willing to do after you receive the gift of salvation from Heavenly Father. Being a millionaire will not have enough.

As we read in Matthew 25, if we would do anything with the gift that God gave us and keep it to ourselves, we would become trash that He can throw us in a waste ban. This is why we need to take action and use the gift that He gave us.

In Luke 16:19-31, Jesus told a story to His disciples about the rich man and poor man, Lazarus. The rich man spent his life on earth with fame, wealth, and power. He didn’t takes care other people, like Lazarus, rather than himself. And Lazarus, this homeless man, tried to beg some help from the rich man. He tried to find some crumbs on the floor under the rich man’s table to fill his stomach. He tried everything to survive, but the rich man did not do anything to save Lazarus from dying.

When the both men died, they ended up two separate places. Lazarus went to Abraham’s bosom and the rich man ended up in Hades.

Let’s study about Abraham’s bosom. Abraham bosom is used as Heaven or Paradise. Before the dead person in the Old Testament went to Heaven, the angel took him Abraham’s bosom, because Jesus Christ did not die and resurrect yet. So, the believer stopped and rested in bosom before God took him Heaven. But, now, after Jesus died and resurrected from the dead 2000 years ago, believers have direct access to Heaven when they would die. More than that, we have direct access to God in this moment. Ephesians 2:18 says, “For through Him [Jesus Christ] we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.” We don’t need to go to pastor to repent our sins or to communicate with Him, because God gave us free access to Him through Jesus Christ.

What would be Heaven place like? Although we hardly to get full picture of Heaven, God gave us little taste of this awesome place in His Written Word, the Bible. John, in Revelation 21:1-4, says, “Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

No more pains, no more hard labor. Can you picture if God would be here today to rapture His Church into Kingdom of Heaven. The old things will pass away and the new things will come arise. We will have a great celebration with Jesus Christ in Heaven. If you would like to in-depth study on Heaven, you may compare Genesis 1-2 and Revelation 21-22. These passages of Genesis will give us some pictures of our new home in Revelation 21-22.

Now, let’s shift to on the other side of eternality, Hell. A place is called Hell is for no one, except those who decide to walk away from Jesus Christ. God created Hell, but He didn’t create it for anyone. Why? The Bible tells us God doesn’t like loose any of us for eternality, because He loves us so much by demonstrating us His love through facing the death penalty for our sins. But why He created Hell on the first place?

God didn’t make Hell for any human. But He created it for those who reject Jesus Christ, because He cannot allow any unrepentant person from his sin in Heaven.

The Hell is an unpleasant place. It is a place with of fire:

The man in Luke 16:24 cries: "….I am tormented in this FLAME."

In Matthew 13:42, Jesus says: "And shall cast them into a FURNACE OF FIRE: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

In Matthew 25:41, Jesus says: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting FIRE…"

Revelation 20:15 says, "And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the LAKE OF FIRE."

If our souls go there, we will have a lot of groaning, weeping, pain forever, because our souls cannot die. It’s opposite of happiness and opposite of Heaven. Once we would go Hell, we never cannot be released from the lake of fire.

Read what happened to the rich man in Luke 16, after he lived in a worldly rich life and died. He ended up at Hades or Hell, where he experienced a painful life. When he begged Abraham to take him out from furnace, Abraham said, “Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented (Luke 16:25).”

The Hell is also a place to remember of all the sins that the person ever had done during his earthly lifetime. Like the rich man, the person will remember all the good things that he ever done to himself and had less care for others. He also would remember the painful moments of his life.

Are you like a rich man, who only care about yourself, or a rich man, who is poor in physical appearance and rich in the spiritual world? God will not judge us according to how much money we made or how much money that we gave to the church. He will judge us according to what we did with our gift of salvation that He gave us. Jesus gave us two questions in Mark 8:36-37,: “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul.” We can win for $1 million sweepstake challenge to Hawaii, but it will only last for a season.

If you like to know where is Hell? If you study Earth Science about the formation of Earth, it is in the center of the earth. It approved by both the biblically and scientifically (see The Truth about Hell. by Terry Watkins).

What if you are between Hell and Heaven today and God brings your case out before all the people behind you, what would your verdict be? Would God judge you innocent or guilty? You can be sure if you already accepted Jesus Christ and do according to His will. Or you are not sure about your future home and would like to know more about Heaven. You can be sure today if you are going to Heaven by accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Savior.

The Bible says, the only way to Heaven is through Jesus Christ (cf. John 10:9). There is no other ways to Heaven.

Are you saved? Are your love ones and friends saved in the grace of God through Jesus Christ? The purpose of this study is to help you to become closer relationship with Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3.)

If you are lukewarm in your relationship with Jesus Christ and want to know Him as your personal Savior and Lord of your life, please consider asking Him to forgive your sins and invite Him into your life. Paul says, "That if you confess with your mouth, `Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10.) If you have done in your private room or workplace, then you need to tell to your friends or love ones about what you have done, so they may rejoice with you and want to have that relationship with Christ in their own life. There are many occults in the world, which do not know the love of God and His great plan for those who believe in Him. As it is written in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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What we would do when our finance would crash for our families? What we would do when our well-know people just die? What we would do when we need food for our souls? Today, most people are seeking for something that would satisfy to their needs. After the 9/11 tragedy on Twin World Trade Tower and Pentagon, many people were crushed and depressed when some jets fired up their targets and killed several thousands innocent people in three buildings. Still, the tragedy is happening around the globe. On July 7 and 21, 2005, some group of people set the bomb to try to kill innocent people at London in France.

What is happening? Who we rely on when we see many people are hurting in our community, country, and other countries? Many of us may find the solution to the problems in money, sex, counselors, Las Vegas Gambling Center, and/or close relatives and friends. Unfortunately, these helpers may only last for a season and we would continue to looking for answer.

Even though we may seem that we are at the end of searching, there is the only person who has answers to all of our problems. That is Person Jesus Christ. He has every solution that we are struggling. Turn to Hebrews 12:1-2:

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

In this text of Scripture, the author declares us that we have the Person we can run into when we are struggling with our lives and searching for the joy. We are in a race of faith that Satan can block us away from going to Jesus. We are in a race of faith that the world can block us to get into the business with God. Paul says that we are not dealing with another human being, but with the power of Satan (see Ephesians 6:12ff). To fight against the power of Satan, we need to prepare our weapons—weapons that are from the Word of God (Ephesians 6:14-18).

It seems to be tough when we would do in our ways. Toughest decisions are not easy to solve in our intelligent minds. Even when we go to the other persons to help us to resolve our problems, we may not satisfy with the solution. For example, if some of us may decide to apply for Social Supplement Income (SSI) to help with your financial needs to pay your bills, because you lost your job and you are in condition that you cannot do everything alone. When you have found your job, your SSI will decrease, because it’s only for a season. Money cannot buy happiness. The Bible tells us that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil (I Timothy 6:10).

The money, itself, has nothing to do with evil, but our thoughts. If we maintain our minds on money, it means that we loss our relationship with Jesus and gain more on money, which we’d become a friend of this world and Satan. Read with me in I John 2:15-17. “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”

It’s good to seek help for financial needs from communities, but it is not okay that the money would become as your god.

In our text, Hebrews 12, tells us that Jesus is the author and finisher of our faiths and is who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross. Apostle Paul tells us we need to rejoice in Him (cf. Philippians 4:4). Although we know that many people rejected Jesus as their Savior, He did give up for those who believe in Him to give them the victory over sins. Either He didn’t give up for us. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

The Word of God says that if we seek Jesus for everything, He will give us peace and abundance that we ever ask Him for. Jesus says, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33.) Seek God and trust Him. This doesn’t mean that He only can make you a millionaire, but wisdom that you can do anything in His name.

Read I Kings 9 and see what God did to Solomon, David Son. He didn’t ask God something more than wisdom. Yet, God gave him more than he ever ask Him for.

Where are you today? Who you can put trust on? If you seek something more than physical needs, there is nothing to compare than to rely on Jesus Christ.

In the next message, I would like to discuss the eternal courtroom. Where you would be when you’d die? There are only two places for you to decide which place that you’d spend eternality. Today’s message is the part of our next study.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
Fear the LORD and depart from evil.
(Proverbs 3:5-7)

Are you saved? Are your love ones and friends saved in the grace of God through Jesus Christ? The purpose of this study is to help you to become closer relationship with Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3.)

If you are lukewarm in your relationship with Jesus Christ and want to know Him as your personal Savior and Lord of your life, please consider asking Him to forgive your sins and invite Him into your life. Paul says, "That if you confess with your mouth, `Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10.) If you have done in your private room or workplace, then you need to tell to your friends or love ones about what you have done, so they may rejoice with you and want to have that relationship with Christ in their own life. There are many occults in the world, which do not know the love of God and His great plan for those who believe in Him. As it is written in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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As we continue on this series on “Worship Our King Jesus,” we also need to be watchful how we receive the Word of God in our hearts. In the previous message, we studied about how we can be from the spiritual corruption in our lives. Before we became children of God, we were spiritual disabled beings. Unlike physical disabled being, we were in a dark place to avoid from the light of the truth. “The Bible says that we were corrupted in our sins and was saved by the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Being a physical disabled may or may not be caused by our spiritual corruption. God did not bring His people into sins, but they brought themselves into the spiritual corruption in their own lives.” (See Worship Our King Jesus: Free from Being Spiritual Disability.)

We worship because we love God and He loves us. We worship God because He is the Creator who created us. We worship Him, not because it’s requirement, but we have freedom that He gave us to choose to serve Him.

But we need to worship God without receiving deception promise from the other gospels. Before I’d go further with this discussion, let’s read I Timothy 4:1-5.

Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

This passage of the Scripture speaks what’s going on the world today. Paul predicted this before his death. Since the days of Paul to our time period, there is a lot of false witness for Jesus Christ. As we see several events today, many churches are falling in this category. Even Trinity Broadcasting Network, Christian Broadcasting Network, and other Christian media are falling for the false gospel.

Paul told his people that one latter of days many of them, even us, will separate from the true Gospel, which Jesus spoke to His apostles and which Moses, prophets, and psalmists spoke throughout the Old Testament, and decide to follow the demonic doctrine. As I said, some of us may live in the darkness situation and need to free from that.

As we see, many of us give credit to our youngsters to watch and read Henry Potter, which contains a lot of magic and witchcraft rituals. Although God told us not to use of witchcraft (Leviticus 19:26-28, 31; 20:6; Deuteronomy 18:9-14), we do it anyway for our own entertainment by watching movies and reading books. Dr. James Dobson, a founder of Focus On Family, said that it is okay for Christian family to watch Henry Potter Movie, which contains witchcraft (read TWO MORE CHRISTIAN-ORIENTED ORGANIZATIONS RECOMMEND HARRY POTTER BOOKS -- WITCHCRAFT IN THE NAME OF JESUS ! from Cutting Edge Ministries). In other saying, he doesn’t care what Satan is doing in the Christian home. Everything what Christian family is doing for kids is for their education and leisure, which it is not a case according to God’s view.

Now, here in I Timothy 4, Paul warns us that some of believers may decide to leave from their faiths in Christ and accept demonic doctrine as their gods. He gave some of lists of demonic activities that people would accept:

• Speaking lies, such as:
  • White lies
  • Half lies
  • Broken promises
  • Make false statements
• Having their own conscience seared with a hot iron
• Forbidding to marry
  • Gay marriage
  • Having sex outside marriage
  • Divorce and hurts
  • Marry to strangers
• Commanding to abstain from foods
  • Weight problem
  • Eating certain food continuously
  • Eating too much junk food
  • Eating food every single hour

As we see, these lists of activities or more do not satisfy with God. Some mega churches believe that we are “little gods.” This doctrine carries over many years as a fundamental Christian teaching through TBN. If we are little gods, then we would not be in the church on Sunday morning. In fact, we would accept and do every activity that God forbids for us to do.

Another example:

In February 2004, many church leaders recommended for Christian to go to see The Passion movie by Mel Gibson, which was rated R and had many bloodshed scenes that even children cannot see it. Why the movie was so violent? One of reasons is that the movie wasn’t made from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, John, and Luke, but it actually from the doctrine of Catholicism. If you compare with the Bible and movie, you’ll see many differences that are not recorded in the Bible. But if you compare with the movie and Catholic doctrine, such as The Secret History of the Jesuits, you’ll see a lot of similarities that are not recorded in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, but are recorded in the Catholic doctrine.

So how we need to protect ourselves from deception and worship God the Almighty. Jesus warned us that there will be a great deception on the final day that even the elect may accept it (Matthew 24:23-25).

In I Timothy 4:4-5, Paul says, “For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” We should not be refused what God has give to us and not to accept what He says “No” for our lives. In fact, God created everything that He created for His purpose.

How we need protect ourselves from deceptive words, so that we may know which things are true and are not?

1) Knowing the right way and wrong way. Although this may seem unbiblical practice, we need to learn both right and wrong ways to handle our life situations. This way, we can know what is right from wrong.

2) Follow the Spirit, not our spirits. The Bible says that the Spirit teaches and leads us into the absolute truth that we would not be aware of from the Word of God. Our own spirit can only know things what we hear from the world perspective and not from God. Our spirits can do what we desire for them to do, but the Spirit that God gave to us can access into His presence and communicate with Him.

3) Receiving deception is from Satan and not from God. Satan loves to make us headache by using other people to lie about anything that God gave to us. Jesus described him as a thief to steal, to kill, and to destroy (see John 10:10). He can use anything or anybody of this world to try to deceive us. The Bible says that he can quote from the Scripture to deceive us. But, he cannot deceive us if we put God in our lives.

God is the Light and Satan is the Dark.

4) Lastly, we need to obey and honor our God and people. If we want to have success life on earth until God would take us His home, we must respect God and people. If we help and love our people, we are actually honoring and obeying Him.

Let me ask you this question: If someone come to you and says that God is not real, would you believe him? If we are gods, there would be no Creator or no beginning point of our lives. But if we are gods, why we have sickness, freckle on our skins, and face the death bed when we would turn old? The answer: we are all human beings and fall short of the glory of God. We all have sinned and there is none of us perfect, except the Person Jesus Christ, who paid all of our sins by facing His death bed at the cross and resurrected on the third day to prove that He is the King of kings and Lord of lords over all things that He created, even us.

Choice is yours and mine alone. Whom are we going to worship? Joshua said to the people of Israel, “And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." (Joshua 24:15.)

Are you saved? Are your love ones and friends saved in the grace of God through Jesus Christ? The purpose of this study is to help you to become closer relationship with Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3.)

If you are lukewarm in your relationship with Jesus Christ and want to know Him as your personal Savior and Lord of your life, please consider asking Him to forgive your sins and invite Him into your life. Paul says, "That if you confess with your mouth, `Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10.) If you have done in your private room or workplace, then you need to tell to your friends or love ones about what you have done, so they may rejoice with you and want to have that relationship with Christ in their own life. There are many occults in the world, which do not know the love of God and His great plan for those who believe in Him. As it is written in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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How many of us know Pastor David Ring? We might hear him on Christian radio and television. Pastor Ring is a physical disabled preacher in Tennessee who born with cerebral palsy. Unlike me, he can walk and talk without using any walker or communication device. I went to one of his meetings in Oakton United Methodist Church with my church friends on June 28, 2005. As I listened to his life testimony, there is a hope to go through any type of challenges in life—whether you are disabled or non-disabled person; old or young.

As you know, I have a physical disability like Pastor David Ring. But I’m not going to talk about my life with disability in this message. Many of you may familiar of my life story.

In this message, I would like to talk about our freedom from spiritual disability. I’m not talking about physical, but spiritual, because we all have disabilities that block us to see the light of the truth. The Bible says that we were corrupted in our sins and was saved by the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Being a physical disabled may or may not be caused by our spiritual corruption. God did not bring His people into sins, but they brought themselves into the spiritual corruption in their own lives.

Let’s read John 9:1-5:

Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. Imust work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

In this passage of John 9, disciples asked Jesus what cause a man was born to be blind of as disabled. They thought it came from his parents’ sins. Of course, we understand that God can give a curse to the person if he’d continually sin against Him. But in this passage, this man is being disabled not because his parents’ sins or his own sin. Nope! Read verses 4 and 5. Jesus said to them that the man was blind, so he could see the miracle of God in him. So he can be freed from the spiritual darkness.

As we read in I Corinthians 1:27-31, Paul says:

But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God--and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—that, as it is written, "He who glories, let him glory in the LORD.”

Even though God know you would have weakest strength, He can use you and set you free from the spiritual disability—known as sins.

Pastor Ring contrasted the definition of his disability—cerebral palsy. In the dictionary says that he can do nothing with his disability, but in the Bible says that he can do anything through Jesus Christ who strengthens him (see Philippians 4:13). Not only that he can speak in the public arena around the 50 states, Jesus gave him the spiritual freedom from the spiritual warfare, because he chooses to live for Christ, not for the world system.

Even we may be in the spiritual blinded. We may not be realized how the world deceive us and lead us into Satan. We may like what President Bush is doing for his citizens, because of his belief. We may don’t realize what actually he stands for his faith; instead, we may accept him as a genius spiritual born Christian. For example, on May 4, 2002, President Bush invited Ozzy Osbourne, a Satanic Rock Star, to White House Ball and let him to sing one of the satanic songs at White House (see more details at Cutting Edge Ministries Headline Analysis).

As we know, God forbids let us associating with unbelievers through marriage, church fellowship, and friendships. Even though God says to us to go the other parts of the world and proclaim His message to unsaved ones, it doesn’t mean that we need to talk and act like them or let’s invite them to the party and let them to play the satanic song. God tells us that we cannot serve both the world and Him. We need to choose whom we should serve—God or World.

So how we can free from the spiritual darkness? Are we going to stay in the dark without light of the truth forever?

Jesus did not come to the world for the New World Order Peace Treaty, but to give us the eternal peace and live eternally with Him. Now, Satan is planning to develop a Peace Treaty with Israel through New World Order, One World Currency, and One World Government (see Revelation), but his treaty will last only for a season (the first half of 7-Year Tribulation).

But you and I can have a peace—peace that Jesus gives to each of us. Jesus said, in John 14:27a, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.” The world peace doesn’t give us rest that what Jesus would like give to each of us. Matthew 11:28-30 say, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

Are you a handicapped person, but wonder about when God would heal you? Or are you in a spiritual disabled situation where you cannot find the absolute truth in God?

God can heal you physically or not, but He can use your physical situation into wonderful and useful tool for His purpose. Although I am physically disabled man, God is still using me as a witness tool for His plan. But it is up to us to set free from the spiritual darkness and go into the light of the truth.

Even though we may let our children to watch Henry Potter Movie, we would do not know that we are still in spiritual darkness—witchcraft. In the next message, I’d like to talk on how we know the truth is real or deception.

Let me ask you this: Do you like to know Jesus Christ today and worship Him? This is not a political question or from our President. We would not hear this question from White House, because it’s for you alone and a chance to have relationship with our eternal President Jesus Christ.

Are you saved? Are your love ones and friends saved in the grace of God through Jesus Christ? The purpose of this study is to help you to become closer relationship with Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3.)

If you are lukewarm in your relationship with Jesus Christ and want to know Him as your personal Savior and Lord of your life, please consider asking Him to forgive your sins and invite Him into your life. Paul says, "That if you confess with your mouth, `Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10.) If you have done in your private room or workplace, then you need to tell to your friends or love ones about what you have done, so they may rejoice with you and want to have that relationship with Christ in their own life. There are many occults in the world, which do not know the love of God and His great plan for those who believe in Him. As it is written in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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Have you read a devotional issue is called “Our Daily Bread” from Radio Bible Class Ministries? Does the book help you that you would need for everyday basis? I read some of devotional thoughts everyday basis, but it’s not like what we read from the Bible. Some of them may seem to be going to right point of the Scripture or some from our own thoughts and experiences and trying to fit into the Scripture.

Even some of us may not be sure of the devotional book; we can always sure that God’s Word speaks truthfully. Why? God always promises what He’d have planned for His people and do it. Even though we would think that God is taking His time and delay on His promise, He always does it on time—right on button.

Although the Bible is old, it is relevant to our lives today. It is our daily bread for our lifetimes and life to come. Jesus said, in John 4:13-14, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Bread stands for life. Remember when Jesus gave His disciples breads at the Lord’s Supper (Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:19-20; I Corinthians 11:23-26), it symbolized His body (Matthew 26:26) or His life. When we would take communion with our Christian brothers and sisters, we are actually remembrance what He did for us on this earth before He ascended to Heaven (Acts 1). Jesus became as the bread of life for us. He is the Bread of Life (John 6:35, 41, 48, 51).

This Bread of Life is not like what people wrote down their thoughts down and published them for everybody to read. But it’s more than that. It speaks truth to our souls, minds, and hearts. God’s Word becomes alive to us. In John 1:1-2 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.”

When Satan tempted Jesus after Him fasted 40 days and nights, He spoke “A man shall not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4.) Most preachers may think that Satan tempted Jesus during the 40 days and nights. If Satan did, Jesus would be really tired and hungry, because human body needs energy to fight against the enemy.

Let me ask you this question? What is your daily bread for your everyday life basis? Newspaper? News? Horoscope? Chicken Soup for Soul? Money? No matter what we’d put in our souls in each morning, rather than the Bible, it may not last for our souls to be in gear throughout the day and next morning. If you like to read Horoscope each day, for example, your goal may not come true on that day, because Horoscope doesn’t always speak true and doesn’t satisfy with God. It comes from witchcraft.

But we always can rely on God and His Words, because His promises always come true. We can listen to news, but we hear many discourage words. We can read Our Daily Bread, but we might still have questions, in our minds, on how they dealt with crisis. We can listen to the Christian songs, but we would lose some of words. But when we read open the Bible and mediate on it, we actually hear what God is saying in our souls. Although some of us may have a hard time to read the Bible, we need to learn how to feed our souls by reading His Word, communicate with Him through prayer, and how to involve with God throughout the day.

Let’s choose to put God as our daily breads before we’d put our first daily task.

Are you saved? Are your love ones and friends saved in the grace of God through Jesus Christ? The purpose of this study is to help you to become closer relationship with Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3.)

If you are lukewarm in your relationship with Jesus Christ and want to know Him as your personal Savior and Lord of your life, please consider asking Him to forgive your sins and invite Him into your life. Paul says, "That if you confess with your mouth, `Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10.) If you have done in your private room or workplace, then you need to tell to your friends or love ones about what you have done, so they may rejoice with you and want to have that relationship with Christ in their own life. There are many occults in the world, which do not know the love of God and His great plan for those who believe in Him. As it is written in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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In the first message, we brief looked of how we need to renew our minds to Jesus Christ. Before we truly worship Him, we must turn our minds to Jesus Christ. The author of Hebrews says, “…looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith…” (Hebrews 12:2a.)

If we don’t look unto Jesus in our daily lives, our minds will set on the world system, which Satan set up for everybody can come and worship him without realizing who he is. For example, almost every Christian believes that President is a genuine and born-again believer in Jesus Christ. But when we read on the newspaper or hear on the news, we see that our president would be doing other stuffs to make every religious community happy, even his action may against God’s words. And Satan would probably love him to make everybody confuse.

Yet, we don’t hear often what Satan is doing behind White House from Christian prospect view in the Christian media, because we are focusing on the world things and less on what God says.

Let’s read Romans 12:1-2 again to set our main study.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Now, last time, we discussed Romans 12:1. Remember, here in this verse, Paul set his speech for everybody to live our life for God as a living sacrifice. Again, it doesn’t mean that we need to die physically to help other person’s needs. But it means that we may have to take risks along with our living and not give up easy. We may have financial problem in the midst of our wonderful lives. Are we going to ignore the issue? No! If we have so much of bills and don’t have enough money, we need to keep deal with it until it would get resolve.

In Romans 12:2, Paul began by saying “…do not be conformed to this world…” This is clear that we do not need to make earth as our eternal home. No, not now! Don’t be confused with the New Earth in Revelation. Yes, God will turn this earth into New Earth and we will return here after He will judge the earth and Satan.

As we see in today’s world, we see that Satan is controlling the world system. Some of us may into his system. We see the fulfillment of Galatians 5:19-21 that Satan would like to see every do the works of flesh. We could name them in today’s terms, and all well-known words are fit these 17 categories. For example, the word “sorcery”: It’s Greek word “pharmakeia,” from which the English word “pharmacy” comes. It originally referred to medicines in general, but eventually only to mood- and mind-altering drugs, as well as occult, witchcraft, and magic. Many pagan religious practices required the use of these drugs to aid in the communication with deities.

I John 2:15-17 tell us if we love the world as our own, the love of our Heavenly Father is not in us. Instead, we love ourselves more than God, which Satan likes for us to do. Even though we have many churches in this country that proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ, several of them are falling apart from God, because they would like to have more fame, power, and wealth as Hollywood does.

We need to wake up from our spiritual sleepy eyes and turn our minds to Jesus Christ. Here in I John 2, John gives us three ways that Satan would like to play with our minds. They are: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. If we look the ways Satan attacked Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4; Luke 4), he uses the same methods, which John named, to attack us.

But we don’t need to be lived as the rest of this world. We are not dumb as what Satan would think of us. We have one true King live in us. Jesus tells us in John 10:10, “I have come that they [we] may have life, and that they [we] may have it more abundantly.” Jesus came to us to give eternal life. He demonstrated His own love toward us, while we were sinners, by facing to the cross and died for us (see Romans 5:8).

We might ask ourselves: How we can pay Him back after what He had done for our sins? Even though He resurrected from the dead, we might still question ourselves of how we can have eternal life. Even though you accept Jesus Christ, you still might have problem to focus on Jesus Christ and want that relationship back.

In Romans 12:2b, Paul says, “…but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and the perfect will of God.”

We need to change our thoughts as what God is thinking. The word “transformed” is a Greek, from which English word “metamorphosis” comes, connotes a change in outward appearance. Matthew uses the same word to describe the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:2). Just as Christ briefly and in a limited way displayed outwardly His inner, divine nature and glory at the Transfiguration, we should outwardly manifest our inner, redeemed natures, not once, however, but daily. We should walk as Jesus walks with us each day. We should talk with others as Jesus talks with us.

If we do as Jesus did to others, we will begin act, talk, and walk like Jesus. And Satan will hate us, because we would become more like Jesus everyday of our life.

Let me ask you this question: If someone come to you and says that you would not many days to live, what would you do? Are you going to change your life around and surrender your wills and accept Jesus Christ as your own personal Savior? Or would you ignore the situation and go with your life until you die without realizing what the person told you? There will be chance when God would judge you as innocent person and receive your eternal life, or He would judge you as guilty person and end of your life at the place, where you’ll suffer for eternally.

Choice is yours and mine alone. Whom are we going to worship? Joshua said to the people of Israel, “And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." (Joshua 24:15.)

Are you saved? Are your love ones and friends saved in the grace of God through Jesus Christ? The purpose of this study is to help you to become closer relationship with Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3.)

If you are lukewarm in your relationship with Jesus Christ and want to know Him as your personal Savior and Lord of your life, please consider asking Him to forgive your sins and invite Him into your life. Paul says, "That if you confess with your mouth, `Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10.) If you have done in your private room or workplace, then you need to tell to your friends or love ones about what you have done, so they may rejoice with you and want to have that relationship with Christ in their own life. There are many occults in the world, which do not know the love of God and His great plan for those who believe in Him. As it is written in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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What it means the word “worship?” Do we know how to worship our God? Most of us it means to sing praise to our King of kings and Lord of lords. Or we think it means to raise your hands, clap our hands and sing to the Lord.

This word “worship” means more than to raise our singing voices to our God. It also means that we are fully devoted to serve our God. All the other parts, which I mentioned above, are parts of it. Prayer is another part of worship.

Before we would go further, let’s read Romans 12:1-2. In this passage, Paul explains to us how we need to worship our Lord Jesus Christ.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

In the first verse of Romans 12, Paul explains us how we need to present to our God to worship Him. The second word, “beseech,” is a Greek word that comes from a root which means “to call alongside to help.” Jesus used a related word, often translated “comforter,” in reference to the Holy Spirit (John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7). How many times we’d ask for help when we cannot figure out the problem? In this text, Paul wants to give us advice to encourage us while we are living in this corruption world.

Of course, we all need help. In the Gospel of John, Jesus gave His disciples promise that He will bring the Comforter to them after He will go to His Father, which it happened after He left them in Acts 1-2.

Why He brings the Comforter to us? Was just enough if we have Jesus? If we turn to John 14, notice what Jesus said in verse 18. He said, “I will not leave you orphans…” Then He said, “I will come to you.” He will not leave us in this corruption world. We will not be poor. If we loose all the money and job, we will not be poor, because Jesus is the solution to all our problems. The job description of the Holy Spirit is to teach us and bring us remembrance all things Jesus taught us (see John 14:26) in His Word. This is why God provided us His written Words and the Holy Spirit.

Let’s go back to our context of this topic. Now, some preachers would misinterpret Romans 12:1-2. Some preachers may teach us that we need to have more Bible reading and prayer times, more giving, helping needing to renewal our thoughts to Jesus Christ. All these activities may seem good and acceptable to Him. But we need to learn how to present ourselves as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God.

Living sacrifice: It doesn’t mean that we need to be fasted for 40 days and nights without food and drink. No! It also doesn’t require us to hang on the cross. If God want us to do these things, His Words would become useless. Although Paul said that we need to live as a living sacrifice, we need to learn how we need to help others, even if the situation is risky. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends (John 15:13).

Holy: Do we think we are worthy to be called holy children of God? What it means to be holy? The word “holy” means devoted entirely to the deity or the work of the deity, but here in Romans 12:1, it means devoted yourself entirely to God with pure heart.

You might think that this statement to be shocked: We are not holy as God without sins. Even though God knows that we are not holy or perfect as Him, He still wants us as His babes. But we need to accept Him as our Savior and ask for forgiveness all of our sins and to make as holy as His children. So we can be acceptable children to God.

The Bible tells us the only way God can accept us if we surrender our wills to Him. Some of us cannot do this; because we want do in our ways to handle our lives. If we believe all the TV evangelists surrender to God’s will and do His given tasks, we might believe them and believe what they say from their own experiences. Unfortunately, this is not the case, if we do further research on TV evangelists.

In this message, we touched the surface of this topic. On our next message, we will go more details of renewing our minds. We cannot worship God truly until we learn to surrender our wills to Him.

This message may seem uncomfortable to some of you. But God calls us to worship Him with all our hearts, minds, and strengths. God wants to us go after Him as just as we are. If you cannot afford to give Him a penny, He still wants you to be in His house and let you worship Him. He just wants you to surrender all your wills, so that He can take care and love you forever.

This message may speak to you today. I don’t have to know who you are and where you are, because there’s God who wants to take care and love you in this very moment. The purpose that I didn’t date the message is that it’s never too late to receive Jesus Christ in your life. If you read this a week from June 10, 2005, and you still are living, you didn’t miss the opportunity to accept Jesus Christ. Today, you have the chance to accept Him. If you do it tomorrow or next week, it might be too late. Accept Him today.

Are you saved? Are your love ones and friends saved in the grace of God through Jesus Christ? The purpose of this study is to help you to become closer relationship with Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3.)

If you are lukewarm in your relationship with Jesus Christ and want to know Him as your personal Savior and Lord of your life, please consider asking Him to forgive your sins and invite Him into your life. Paul says, "That if you confess with your mouth, `Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10.) If you have done in your private room or workplace, then you need to tell to your friends or love ones about what you have done, so they may rejoice with you and want to have that relationship with Christ in their own life. There are many occults in the world, which do not know the love of God and His great plan for those who believe in Him. As it is written in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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In the first chapter of Psalm, the psalmist tells us that there are two ways of life in this world—the godly life (vs. 1-3) and the ungodly life (vs. 4-6). How can this be? Of course, we understand that God created man, the heavens and the earth perfect within the first six days of His creation, but we see in Genesis 3, that the serpent came up to the world to tempt Adam and Eve in a calculated plan to defile everything that was pronounced “good.” Adam and Eve broke the covenant with God and decided to follow the serpent’s advice; this established an alternate way of life, giving man the choice of living a godly or ungodly life. Romans 3:23 declares that, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

If we compare history’s account in Genesis chapters 1, 2 and 3 to Revelation chapter 20, we will see that our human nature is still far from God. From Adam to today, we continue to sin against our Heavenly Father. Paul says in Romans 5:12, that through one man (Adam), sin entered the world, which resulted in death to all men.

As Christians, we don’t need to face death in the same way as unbelievers. Of course, we all have to die physically, because God limited human life as a result of Adam’s sin. The second death is for unbelievers, which is a separation from God forever, but it is an option for us to choose this death penalty. Remember this: the second death is banishing the unbelievers from God’s presence to the lake of fire and hell.

So, how can we be saved from the second death bed? What do we need to do to enter the Kingdom of Heaven ? There are so many people dying each day around the globe; and most of them might end up in hell. Unfortunately, many people choose to make hell as their permanent destination, because they refuse to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Fortunately, the Book of Romans says that God is just and merciful, that He gives us every chance to be right with Him through His Son, Jesus Christ. In fact, Romans 5:8 says, “…God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” If Jesus Christ didn’t come to the world, we would be forever unrighteous. We can never justify our sins by any works; it is by faith in God alone. Without faith in Him, our work is considered spirituality dead. In other words, we need to have faith in God and to do His will to become the children of God.

Most people believe that Jesus died for every person’s sin in this world and that in this act alone, man is automatically justified for their sins. While it is true that Jesus died for every person’s sins, repentance of the sinner is needed to activate the power of redemption. If we believe that Christ died for the world just so we could keep sinning, it would mean that there is no justice or mercy in God. This dangerous mindset communicates that one could enter the Kingdom of Heaven and live forever with unrepentant sins. It would also mean that the Bible is a fictional book, which makes God a liar. Without the preaching of the truth, how will people know the eternal life? Believing a lie will result in a death sentence, making it too late to get right with God?

Fortunately, God is just and merciful; He can save us from our sins and darkness. Although God loves every person that He created, He cannot let sinners enter His place unless they repent of their sins and ask for forgiveness and do His will.

We were considered enemies of God before we came to Him. Before we realized that we were astray from our eternal Father, we were arrested under the law of sins. We were slaves to sin instead of slaves to righteousness. There was no way out from the darkness. Our release from Satan’s prison came when we realized that we were sinners and accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

Although our flesh will not live forever because of sin, our spirits will live for eternality; we must choose the right Master for our lives. There are so many people who are in prison because of sin and need Jesus Christ in their lives. We can see these people in the news and media. For example, many young adults commit suicide by taking drugs to end their lives. Or, seek sexual pleasures to find happiness. No matter what activities he might do outside of God’s standard, he is a servant of Satan and will end his life in hell if there is no repentance.

Even though we have a relationship with Jesus Christ, it doesn’t mean that we don’t deal with sin anymore. We all face problems in our lives, whether we are Christians or not. Because we are not the perfect image of God, we will struggle with our moral flesh everyday. We make mistakes in the process toward perfection. We like to do the things that are not good in the eye of God. Remember, we cannot justify ourselves. If we try to justify ourselves, we will make more mistakes in our lives.

Apostle Paul says that we are saved by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. Does this mean that God just covered sin in us through His grace? No! We are saved by the grace of God with a price that we cannot ever pay back. We don’t even deserve His gift of grace, He did it through His love for a lost and dying people, by dying on the cross 2000 years ago and being resurrected from the grave on the third day to prove that we have a Savior, who loves us and cares for us.

So why do we have law in our lives? Do we need to have law in order to accept God’s grace? We first need to understand that God’s free grace has nothing to do with law, but we still need the law in order to understand what sin means to us. There are at least 613 laws in God’s Word and we don’t need to memorize them all in order to define God’s standard for us, except only one law, agape love. If we understand what it means to have agape love, we will follow the remaining 612 laws. In the same matter, we need to understand the law in order to understand what we do wrong in God’s eye, so that we can understand why God gives us a free gift.

Romans 2:12 says, “For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law…” The law has an important role in our lives. If we lived without any law, we would have a miserable life. Every person would have the right to kill each other, because there is no law to protect us from murders. This is why our country has a court system and police on the streets—to protect us from harm. In the same manner, God’s laws reveal our sins to protect us from going astray.

His laws are greater than the laws of any country or nation, because God has the final authority over everything in this world. Our Supreme Court system had been leading us into many wrong ways over the last several decades. Our Supreme Justice has excluded God from the public community, because of other religious beliefs and people who hate Jesus. Our Supreme Justice voted for the right of gay marriages, because the people were asking for it, thus pulling themselves from God. As we can see, our country is becoming s Sodom and Gomorrah each day.

Although many of us believe that our country was founded by Christian principles, we can see the mistakes we’ve created for our own pleasure. Recently, we’ve seen many people terrified by the tragedies the world has experienced, causing some to turn back to God.

Do we know why our country has been faced with so many natural disasters and religious rebellion over the years? Some of us believe that they are the part of World War III, or a New World Order Plans, or that we are in the partnership with to help them to avoid from their enemies to take over their land. All these play a part of causing disasters in our country, but they are not the main cause of terror. Our country has many terrors because of our sins. God will let suffer until she realizes that she is far away from God. We need to tune our hearts into the right frequency to avoid any other terrors. The frequency of our hearts I’m talking about is God’s righteousness.

We need to learn how to be God’s holy children in order to live with Him eternally. We cannot continue to live like Sodom and Gomorrah without God. The Bible says that we will all face God’s judgment before we enter our eternal home. Some people will make their eternal home in heaven; others will choose the punishment of hell.

God wants everybody to make heaven as their eternal home and gives everyone a second chance to have their names written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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If you are married to your wife or husband and have a child, do you know what is this child going to be in future? Have you wonder what your child want to be when she/he would finish high school or college? As we are living in the twentieth-first century, we have seen kids would make good or poor choices in their lives. Some of them would decide to go to the right path where God would like them to be. Or some of them would decide to go to the right path where Satan would like them to be. But their decisions of living are depending on their living with parents. It is the beginning point of their lives.

As we conclude this part of series, we will look at the question: What then is this child going to be?

Let’s read Luke 1:62-66:

“Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone's astonishment he wrote, ‘His name is John.’ Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed, and he began to speak, praising God. The neighbors were all filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things. Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, ‘What then is this child going to be?’ For the Lord's hand was with him.”

In this passage and previous message, we see that many people wondered what’s the child’s name going to be. In Luke 1:60, Elizabeth answered them his name is to be called John. But the people refused that name (v. 61), because they did not see anybody whom carried this name among the family.

Now it’s Zechariah turn to finalize the child’s name. Since he cannot talk to everybody, due to his rebellion against the angel of Lord (see Luke 1:5-25), he wrote that “his name is John” on a writing tablet (1:62-63).

Why he called that name on his child? Zechariah had no choice rather than to follow the angel’s message. If he would call different name of his child, he wouldn’t be talking. As soon as he announced his child to be called John, his mouth was opened and began to talk (v. 64). “The neighbors were filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things.” (v. 65.)

But everyone were wondered what the child would be (v. 66). Since Zechariah and Elizabeth believed the power hand of God, they would answer them this child would be the massager that would announce the people to repent and ready for the coming of the Messiah.

As we look at John the Baptist and his parents, what are our actions to be? In Matthew 3 and Luke 3, we see that John the Baptist followed the instructions of the Lord that an angel announced to his parents (Luke 1). Do you rely on God with your child’s future? God told Jeremiah that He recognized him as a prophet before he came out from his mother’s womb (Jeremiah 1:5).

What is your example to pass onto your child? It is your responsible to give example to your child that is God’s way or worldly way to life. If we are not married, it is our responsible to set example godly way to live to the other believers. Paul said, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in faith and in purity.” (I Timothy 4:12.)

Are you saved? Are your love ones and friends saved in the grace of God through Jesus Christ? The purpose of this ministry is to share with you how much God loves you and me and wants to come in our own life to take us through any obstacles in our daily life. As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3.)

If you are lukewarm in your relationship with Jesus Christ and want to know Him as your personal Savior and Lord of your life, please consider asking Him to forgive your sins and invite Him into your life. Paul says, "That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10.) If you have done in your private room or workplace, then you need to tell to your friends or love ones about what you have done, so they may rejoice with you and want to have that relationship with Christ in their own life. There are many occultisms in the world, which do not know the love of God and His great plan for those who believe in Him. As it is written in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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From the previous message, we looked at Luke 1:57-58 and studied about why God allowed Elizabeth to have a baby in her old age. We also studied about why the birthday tradition was not important in the Jewish community. As we studied through these discussions, we found out that God does not care how old we are rather than to have a personal relationship with each of us. Paul said there is nothing will able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:37-39).

Why?

In I Corinthians 13, Paul gave an explanation about why the “love” is so powerful tool to establish the relationship than anything else. If there is no love, how Elizabeth conceived a child and rejoiced with her family and neighbors? If we would so focus on our personal holiday, how the love of God effect in us? In I John 4:19 said, “We love because he [God] first loved us.” Because He loves us, He created the world and formed us to live in this planet to establish the loving relationship with us. Because of His love, God gave us the second chance to repent our sins and may have eternal relationship with Him. Because of His love, Elizabeth celebrated what God has done in her life.

As we continue to study about the birth of Elizabeth’s child, why she and her husband, Zechariah, gave the unique name to their child.

Read Luke 1:59-61:

On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, but his mother spoke up and said, “No! He is to be called John.”

They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who has that name.”

The word “circumcision” means removal of the foreskin in males. Throughout the Old Testament, we see that every firstborn must be circumcising in the Jewish community. It is necessary do this, especially with males, to remind their convent with God. It is established by God to signify His relationship with the Israelites.

In Genesis 17:9-14, God made a covenant with Abraham to signify His relationship with Abraham’s future descendants. All male Jewish babies underwent circumcision, a sign their set-apartness as God’s chosen people. I Peter 2:9-10a said,”…you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God…”

It is important to Jew that the only priest must do circumcision the child. Since the Jewish people released from Egypt, God specifically gave this law to the priests, Aaron and his sons, because it needed to be done property and holy by whom charged the Temple. God commanded that only eight-day old males to be circumcised to recognize that this child is belong to Him.

Then in the New Testament tells us that it is not necessary to be circumcised the child, because Jesus Christ has free us from the bondage of our sins (Galatians 5:1-12). Paul said, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

“Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

“You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. ^‘A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.’ I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!”

Why do we baptize? The baptismal symbolizes that we born again in God’s family (John 3:1-8). It is the similar method as in the Old Testament. But, now, God let us to choose to come into His family. Circumcision and baptismal have nothing to do, but God would like to know what you would do after you have taken the first step of your new life.

Now, in Luke 1:59b, we see that the priest must name the child after the child’s father originally. But in this passage, Elizabeth refused to call her child after his father and named him John (1:60). This is strange for the priests (1:61), because she broke the tradition of family. But Elizabeth did just as an angel told her to do (Luke 1:5-25).

Elizabeth understood that her child will be special one as it prophesied in Isaiah 40:3.

What Zechariah would say about this? Did he agree with his wife about their child? If you have a child, what you would name her/him? Next week, we will conclude this study on the name John.

Are you saved? Are your love ones and friends saved in the grace of God through Jesus Christ? The purpose of this ministry is to share with you how much God loves you and me and wants to come in our own life to take us through any obstacles in our daily life. As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3.)

If you are lukewarm in your relationship with Jesus Christ and want to know Him as your personal Savior and Lord of your life, please consider asking Him to forgive your sins and invite Him into your life. Paul says, "That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10.) If you have done in your private room or workplace, then you need to tell to your friends or love ones about what you have done, so they may rejoice with you and want to have that relationship with Christ in their own life. There are many occultisms in the world, which do not know the love of God and His great plan for those who believe in Him. As it is written in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EST

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What if you have a son or daughter, would you give him/her a unique name and have a big celebration with your neighbors? Probably. In this generation, having a baby shower is the most common thing to do if somebody would have a newborn child. Unfortunately, our modern day of this celebration has been quite different from what we will see Elizabeth’s baby shower in Luke 1.

1First, let’s read Luke 1:57-66.

”When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy."

”On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, but his mother spoke up and said, ‘No! He is to be called John.’

“They said to her, ‘There is no one among your relatives who has that name.’

“Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone's astonishment he wrote, ‘His name is John.’ Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed, and he began to speak, praising God. The neighbors were all filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things. Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, ‘What then is this child going to be?’ For the Lord's hand was with him.”

In this passage, we see that God gave Elizabeth and Zechariah a boy, just as an angel announced them in earlier verses (Luke 1:5-25). Luke 1:57 explained that there was a time to conceive a child. When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby...

Why God waited later of Elizabeth’s time to give her a son? This question is not for Elizabeth to hear God to answer. It’s not for Elizabeth to worry how she could take care her son. As we read about Abraham, God gave him a son for His purpose. It doesn’t matter to God about how old we are, because He knows about us before we born (see Jeremiah 1:5).

Nowadays, we felt that having a birthday is so important to our lives. Throughout the Bible, we see that any of people didn’t celebrate this kind of traditional holiday, except two kings from the Paganism, King Pharaoh and King Herod.=

God has time to do everything in our personal life; such as He has time for Elizabeth to give a child.

Are we having time for God to allow intervening into our lives? When you look into your mirror in the morning, what do you see inside of yourself? When it was time for Elizabeth to have a child, her neighbors and relatives came to her to rejoice with her, because they understood what the Lord had shown her was a great mercy (Luke 1:58).

Are you ready to celebrate with God in His kingdom? In Matthew 25, Jesus told a story about what happened to ten virgins when they aimed for a wedding ceremony. The first five virgins made to the party because they understood what this is all about, but the last five didn’t make to the party due to laziness. The purpose of this ministry is to share with you how much God loves you and me and wants to come in our own life to take us through any obstacles in our daily life. As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3.)

If you are lukewarm in your relationship with Jesus Christ and want to know Him as your personal Savior and Lord of your life, please consider asking Him to forgive your sins and invite Him into your life. Paul says, "That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10.) If you have done in your private room or workplace, then you need to tell to your friends or love ones about what you have done, so they may rejoice with you and want to have that relationship with Christ in their own life. There are many occultisms in the world, which do not know the love of God and His great plan for those who believe in Him. As it is written in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Posted by MGJC Web Ministry at 12:01 AM EDT

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