Jerusalem - Holy Land
Monday, October 18, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Why Fear?
Fear 1
The Bible tells us that the fear involves torment (1 john 4:18), which is exactly what the devil uses to bring destruction to the church of the Lord Jesus. Job confessed, “For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has happened to me”
Faith is a powerful tool for edification; fear is a powerful tool for destruction. Faith is a sign of success; fear is a sign of failure.
Fear is also a manifestation of negative faith. We fear because we are sure that our worries will come true. This is the total opposite of Christian faith, and yet it is still faith. In other words, in the same way that God, through the Holy Spirit, strengthens Christian faith in the hearts of His children, the devil, through unclean and deceiving spirits, strengthens negative faith, or fear, in the hearts of those who have rejected genuine Christian faith.
Satan used the apostle Peter to try and dissuade the Lord Jesus from doing what He came to do. He also speaks to us, trying to rush us into wrong decisions. He incites fear and, as a consequence, we become weak. How many times have we become fearful because of circumstances that were arranged by devil or words that were spoken by people we love?
In this respect, we must be very careful, because the devil will not use people we distrust; on the contrary, He will use those close to us, those whom we love the most. As a consequence we must be alert and yet not allow fear or worry to find room in our hearts. Fear and worry produce torment and death.
To be continued next week!
Monday, October 11, 2010
Renato Cardoso's Blog: Gold from your enemies
Friday, October 8, 2010
You Have Power
Many times we wonder why things don't work out in our life as they should work and we get embarrassed without knowing which way we should take to change our life. Amazingly, many people don't know that they are those who have power to defeat themselves. We all know that when a person is defeated the first thing he/she does is to look for someone to blame, is hard for a defeated person to blame herself is much easier to blame somebody else but who can be blamed for our failures? Can we sincerely blame others when things go wrong in our life? In this world we sow and we reap the fruit of what we have sown, then we are not suppose to blame anybody when we fail, we should look into ourselves and find out what caused the disaster in our life. God is so awesome that He always gives us the second chance to start everything all over again. If you need a second chance you just need to ask and you shall receive.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
A daughter complained to her father about her life and how difficult things were going for her.
She didn’t know what else to do and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting. It seemed like as soon as one problem was solved, another arose. Her father took her into the kitchen, filled three pots with water and placed each one over a high flame. It wasn’t long before the water came to a boil.
He put carrots into one, eggs into another and in the last one he put coffee beans.
He allowed all of them to boil and without saying a word.
His daughter was impatiently waiting, trying to figure out what he was doing.
About twenty minutes later, he turned off the stove. He fished out the carrots and put them in a bowl. He did the same with the eggs and as well as with the coffee beans.
He turned to her and asked: "What do you see here?"
"Carrots, eggs and coffee," she said.
He asked her to try the carrots. She noticed how tender they were.
He asked her to take an egg and crack its shell. She did and after pulling off the shell, she observed how the egg had hardened after being boiled.
Finally, he asked her to take a sip of coffee. She smiled as she tasted its rich aroma and asked, "What does this all mean, dad?"
He explained how each one of them had faced the same adversity, the boiling water, but each one reacted differently.
The carrots went in strong, hard and unrelenting. But after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became tender.
The eggs were fragile. Its thin outer shell protected its liquid center, but after being put into the boiling water, its inside hardened.
However, the ground coffee beans were uniquely different from the others. Once they were put into the boiling water, they ended up changing the water.
"Which one are you, my child?” asked her father.
When adversity comes knocking on your door, how do you answer? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean? Are you like the carrots that seem strong, but after enduring some pain and adversity become tender and lose their strength?
Or are you like the eggs, that start off with a soft heart, but after enduring difficulties becomes harder and harder?
Or are you like the coffee bean? It changed the boiling water, the same thing that was causing the pain. The coffee bean was able to extract its best flavor.
The hotter the water, the better tasting’s the coffee. When things get worse, you become better and improve everything around you as well.
How do you handle adversity?
Bishop Macedo
Monday, October 4, 2010
Sunday, October 3, 2010
The Power of Asking.