God has blessed and encouraged me thoroughly by the ‘Word of the Week’ by Zac Poonen. I am publishing it as is here with due credit to him. Read and be blessed. WORD FOR THE WEEK 21 February 2010
Christian Fellowship Church, Bangalore, India www.cfcindia.com.
Zac Poonen
In Genesis 11:4 we read that the people of the world decided to build a tower. They said to each other, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower whose top would reach to heaven.” They wanted their tower to be the gate of God (Babel). Human effort to reach God is a major constituent of false religion. False religion is always a religion of works – and not one of faith and dependence on God. Continue Reading
I was amazed why God did not allow me to change the ‘Word of the week’ for two weeks. I intended to change, yet, when I asked for it, He did not provide His Word. Finally I chose to keep this page as is – thinking probably God has to make that message available to someone who really needed it.
Finally, He touched my heart with one very inspiring story from Email Ministry – ‘The perfect mistake’. I have been thoroughly blessed, so publishing it as is, with all due credit to the Email Ministry team.
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And what about other traditions? Can we not respect our elders by touching their feet?
This is again a subjective question and above principle can explain this. However, to answer it specifically, I would recommend that we must ask wisdom from God to differentiate between culture and religious rituals. In general, you may touch the feet of elders, but we ought to understand that it is ensured that we would not compromise with the glory of God in anyway. Continue Reading
What about marriage and other ceremonies? Our rest of the families are yet following old religious traditions? So are we supposed to oppose them?
This is another subjective question in this series. I must admit, you have to take your own decision and deal with it based on the leading of the Holy Spirit of God.
You will find people on both extremes – those who totally revolt and go against their families and relatives and eventually loose the opportunity to share the gospel forever or those who totally surrender themselves to idol worship and other customs and do not give any glory to true and living God. In both the cases, probably they have not understood the spirit of the Word of God but the letter. Continue Reading
May be, but to me the probability looks very less.
We must understand that it could be a deception of devil to take us away from God than our genuine effort to save the soul. God wants to save souls, this is His agenda but he would not compromise on the way it should be done. When He asks not to be unequally yoked with unbeliever, He means it.
If you are unable to witness the love of Jesus to this person before marriage, there is hardly a chance that you would be able to do it after it. Especially for girls in Indian society, it could be even harder to persuade her spouse to believe in what she believes. This may rather affect her own spiritual growth and draw her away from fellowship and eventually from God Himself. Think! Are you not bringing obstacles in your own spiritual growth? Decision is all yours.
Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, historian and logician who was a prolific writer of many philosophic writings and known for atheism, said - Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose
