Accurate?

A friend posted this short article on facebook:

Why Go To Church?

A Churchgoer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. "I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time and the preachers are wasting theirs by giving all those sermons as well."

This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher: "I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals but I do know this. They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!"

When you are DOWN to nothing.... God is UP to something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible! Thank God for our physical AND our spiritual nourishment!

First of all, I would like to say that this article is quite a dangerous article; simply because it can be interpreted differently depending on how you see it. If a non-believer or even a believer is convinced that this is how church works, then, God have mercy upon them, because they only got the smallest part of how church works. This article only shows a small portion of how church works, and it will be misleading if people simply just take it as the major role of a church.

In the first paragraph, there is this guy that goes to church for 30+ years already, and has listened to 3000++ sermons, and yet he did not remembered any one of it. This clearly shows that this person is NOT a Christian at all. A born-again Christian has been given the Holy Spirit as guide and mentor, and the Holy Spirit WILL teach the person on every sermons he hears. And with the discipline of God, the spiritual lessons learnt will be integrated into the life and character of the person.

So, if the person did not get anything from the 3000++ sermons after 30+ years, he does not have the Holy Spirit. If he does not have the Holy Spirit, he is not a born-again Christian. If he is not a born-again Christian, he is NOT a Christian at all. Having "Christian" written as your religion does NOT mean you are a Christian. For further readings, please study the book of Hebrews. It's just a short book, but contains very heart-piercing words.

However, if we are to assume that the person is not a Christian, then it's totally fine. A churchgoer do not necessary mean a Christian, simply because any non-believers are welcomed to attend church anytime, as frequent as they want. But,

1 Corinthians 2:14  The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Thus, non-believers who attends church will find it very hard to understand the sermons. Thus, this supports that the person mentioned earlier is NOT a Christian.


 Next, let's examine this statement from the 2nd paragraph:

 "if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!"

That is not true. Going to church is NOT the ONLY way for nourishment and it is not even the best way. The best way to keep yourself in-tune with God is have a consistent heart that seeks Him; consistent in a way that you continue to long for God and to seek Him EVERY MOMENT of your life. And by seeking Him, we will be nourished.

The purpose of going to church is not for ourselves, but for body of Christ as a whole, for corporate worship, and to uphold one another. So, if our purpose is for nourishment, we do not need to go to church for that. We can do it anywhere, anytime, because God is omnipresent; He is everywhere at everytime. So, practically, if you do not go to church, you will NOT necessary decay spiritually. No doubt that it is true you will get nourishment if you go to church. But church is just one day of a week; not even one day; just half a day. What matters more is how you live your life the rest of the week. Do you continue to seek God, longing for Him consistently?

So, in conclusion, the article above is misleading and can be very dangerous if we do not understand the truth of the Scripture and what God wants of us.

And I am NOT against attending church. I'm just trying to rectify and complete the meaning of the article.

Soli Deo Gloria!
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Miracle

Just sharing a blog post of pastor Jaeson Ma:

You will either see nothing as a miracle, or you can choose to see everything as a miracle. You can choose to use your logic, or you can choose to have faith. When logic no longer has an answer for your problems, that is when faith is most needed and that is when miracles happen. Everyday, if you pay close attention you will recognize that many things that happen are more than mere coincidence, but possibly a divine orchestration of God’s intervention. A few ways to experience a miracle in your life…

1.    Believe in a Good God ~ miracles happen when have faith in a God that can make the impossible, possible.  When we believe that God is good, anything can happen! The Devil is always bad, God is always good, put your faith in God’s goodness & you will expect good things to happen to you!

2.    Pray Often ~ when you begin to pray about everything your spiritual eyes began to see past logic and into the realm of faith. You enter from the natural into the supernatural and this creates an environment around you for miracles to happen.

3.    Look for Signs ~ many times we recognize miracles when we pay attention to divine signs that appear in our lives. When you realize that something you just prayed for happened, or something is too good to be true, it’s probably a miracle on the rise.

4.    Be expectant ~ miracles happen to those who believe, those who exercise their faith and desire to see uncommon hopes accomplished. A pastor once said, “Impossible situations can become possible miracles” Every challenge is opportunity for a miracle to happen!

Remember that, “Everyday holds the possibility of a miracle.” We got to believe that in every challenge of life that we face, it presents an opportunity for miracles to take place. After all, just the fact that we are alive is a miracle in itself…Yes, you are the greatest miracle of all!

Read the original post here.

Pastor Jaeson is the coolest pastor evar!.. lol.
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What Makes Christanity Different From Other Religions?

I've seen an earlier version of this video. Here is a new version of it; this time in HD and has more powerful illustrations to its message. Credits to philos71.

http://www.philos71.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/philos71



Go to Youtube to watch the full size high quality version.

Nomenclature

So, regarding the matter on the usage of the word "Allah", I'll just link you to two great views I happened to come upon. Just two opinions and it covers most of what you may ever wanted to argue about, in regards to this issue.

1)  From a Muslim's perspective, our dear Marina Mahathir takes the example of  "Prophet Muhammad’s Promise to Christians" to show how easily people get confused with the word. The article also pointes out how are Muslims to relate with Christians.

Now, when that delegation from St Catherine's monastery came to meet with Prophet Mohamad (pbuh), I suppose it's fair to assume that they spoke Arabic to one another. And when they were conversing, surely the word 'God' must have come up. As in "May God Be With You" and such like. What word did the Prophet (pbuh) use for 'God' I wonder? And what did the St Catherinians use in return? For monotheists like them, was there a 'your God' and 'my God' type of situation, or did they understand that they were both talking about the same One?

While some idiots are mourning over the 'loss' of the word 'Allah' and therefore basically telling the world that they are people easily confused by nomenclature, and others are predicting riots over  what is basically a 'copyright' issue, let me define what I think a confident Muslim should be:

Please read the full article here.

* Commercial break... refresh your eyes *

2)  From a Christian's perspective, Dr Ng Kam Weng discusses the significance of the word "Allah" in Christianity, backed with some doctrinal references. He focuses more on the 'technical' details.

One major demand from the Malay protestors is that Christians stop using the word Allah on grounds that Christians can find a simple alternative, that is, simply substitute the word Allah with the word Tuhan. Unfortunately, this demand only betrays the ignorance of the protestors. I would have thought that any Malay would know that the meaning of the words Allah (God) and Tuhan (Lord, Rabb) are not the same. How can they suggest that Christians simply use the word Tuhan to substitute the word Allah? To express the issue linguistically, Allah and Tuhan have different senses even though they have the same reference.

Both the terms Allah and Tuhan are used in the Malay Bible. Following the precedent set by Arab Christians, Allah is used to translate el/elohim and Tuhan(or TUHAN in caps) is used to translate Yahweh (YHWH). The two words are sometimes paired together as Yahweh-Elohim in 372 places in the Old Testament (14 times in Genesis 2-3; 4 times in Exodus;8 times in Joshua; 7 times in 2 Samuel; 22 times in Chronicles; 12 times in Psalms; 32 times in Isaiah; 16 times in Jeremiah and 210 times in Ezekiel etc.).

More importantly, the word Tuhan is also applied to Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Thus we read of the LORD Jesus as Tuhan Yesus (The word LORD was used to translate the word kurios 8400 times in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament. It refers to human beings in only 400 times and refers to God 8000 times. Of these 8000 times, 6700 are substitute for the word YHWH). The transference of the title kurios LORD/YHWH to Jesus Christ is testimony to the belief in the deity of Christ right at the beginning of Christianity.

Please read the full article here.


So, what can I say? In the end, it's all about politics, and people fall for it.


ADD: Another interesting read, from a Sabahan. Please read. It'll widen your mind.
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