Tag Archives: Confess

You WILL still sin! What every new believer in Christ needs to know! Part 5

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Just because a person has accepted Jesus into their lives DOES NOT mean that they will never sin again!

If any Christian says that they don’t sin any more, they are lying! If the devil or anyone else tells you that a “good Christian” does not sin, it’s a lie!

The Bible is very clear when it says that Christians will sin, but not live in sin! We will all fall, even though we have started walking with Jesus. I am not saying that this is our ticket to sin. No, anyone who uses God’s grace as an excuse to sin and is constantly living in sin (continually sinning), is not a true follower of Jesus!

The verses mentioned in this video are: 2 Chronicles 7:14, Romans7:14-25 and 1 John 1:8-10

I pray this will encourage Christians, new and old, young and mature, to keep walking in the faith, no matter how many times you fall!

Remember 1 John 1:8-10:

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

God bless you all!

Sri

Jesus wants to talk to YOU

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Introduction

I’m writing this post because this topic was laid on my heart one morning late last year and believe it or not, the person that the Lord laid on my heart was Kim Kardashian! Don’t ask me why, but that’s the truth! So, this post is for her (not that I expect Kim Kardashian to come across this post) and many other women out there who can relate to it.

Before anyone gets on my case about this, while this post focuses on women, the sad reality is that there are also many men out there, who go from relationship to relationship, hurting women and getting hurt in the process! So, everything in this post, applies to men as well!

I’m going to refer to Scripture because everything I’m about to share, is based on God’s Word. As a Christian, the Bible is my go to source for all things concerning life!

Read before proceeding
 Read the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4:4-42

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

 The Characters

The First Move

The Samaritan woman did not know who Jesus was, but she knew He was a Jew and would have no doubt been surprised to see Him there. When Jesus spoke to her, it would have been a greater shock as Jews did not interact with Samaritans and considered them to be filth.

But Jesus did speak with her, treating her as a person of worth! Jesus didn’t stop there. He revealed to her only details she knew about herself! She immediately knew that Jesus was a prophet! We know from the Bible that this woman had been married five times before and was living with a man who was not her husband! Rather than judging and condemning her, He offered her living water, that is, He offered her salvation, redemption! She told Jesus that they were waiting for the Messiah to come and tell them everything!

Jesus revealed to her who He was, that He was the One that she was speaking about, the One everyone was waiting for!

The Response

The Bible tells us that she ran to tell the people in her village about this Prophet, wondering out loud if this gracious and insightful prophet could be the Christ! Jesus went on to spend more time there when they insisted and many more were saved!

Question?

Are you like the Samaritan woman? Have you been seeking comfort and meaning in one relationship after another? Do you keep telling yourself it’ll be better “next time”? Are you nursing a broken heart? Are you secretly struggling with an inexplicable emptiness? Are you questioning your self-worth?

Your life is not over!

Please don’t despair! Jesus is speaking with you today! Question is, like the Samaritan woman, are you willing:

a) to hear the good news of Jesus
b) to believe His Word (the Bible)
c) to receive Jesus into your life as Savior and Lord!

The choice is YOURS!

The choice is yours:

  • Keep going about your life as you have been, keep getting hurt and disappointed as you have been, keep living a hopeless, empty and weary life

OR

  • Receive Jesus with a childlike faith and be born again!

Encouragement from the Bible

I pray that the Bible verses below will encourage you even further to turn to Jesus.

“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.” (Jesus, John 3:16)

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Jesus, Matthew 11:28)

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

 “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” (Psalm 139:14)

You are SPECIAL to God

God made you in His image, beautiful and wonderful! He loves you and longs for you to know Him! Not only that, He has a plan and a purpose for you. Just read this verse below from the Bible!

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Concluding Thoughts

You’ve lived your life the way you want till now and you alone know where it has gotten you.

Why don’t you give Jesus a chance now? Look at the Bible verse below!

No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. (Joshua 1:5)

God promises that He will always be with you. You can trust Him with your life here on Earth and for all eternity.

I am praying for you, whoever you may be, that you would indeed come to know Jesus as Lord and Saviour.

God bless you.

Sri Unplugged # 2 – Same Sex Marriage

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I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in the Bible as the inerrant Word of God. Over the last few days, I was engaged in debates with same sex marriage supporters on the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) Facebook page. This video is a result of some of the exchanges I had with a few people on there, who were taking Bible verses out of context to make a mockery of God and the Bible.

I DO NOT and CANNOT HATE homosexuals. If I did, I cannot call myself a Christian or say that I love Jesus. Jesus/God has not called or asked Christians to hate anyone, but to stand against, to hate that which is ungodly. Homosexuality is detestable to God and this is very clear in the Old Testament (Leviticus 18:22) and the New Testament (Romans 1:21-27).

Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.
Leviticus 18:22

If you are one of those who try to justify that this is not meant for people today and only applied to the Israelites back then, what do you say about the verses below from the New Testament?

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Romans 1:21-27

The verses above not only clearly states that same sex relationships are not natural, but they also tell us why God allowed people to make the choice to engage in unnatural behaviour!

Marriage is between a man and a woman. That is the natural, normal order. If you are watching this video or reading this, you are here because your mother and father came together and the result is you! Same sex marriages cannot result in new life! Not without artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization! These procedures are not natural, though medically possible. That’s NOT how human beings naturally come into this world. I had one guy challenge me that Jesus was born through third part involvement! How absurd! In the UNIQUE case of Jesus, He was born to a virgin because of a miraculous act of God! There were still only two parties! God did not take the sperm from another man and then inject it into Mary! Foolish people have foolish arguments and to support their foolishness, they take Scripture verses out of context or twist what the Bible says to suit their own agenda!

If you don’t believe in God and are set in your thinking that God is not real and that the Bible is just a fairy tale, then this video and my stand will upset you. So be it. But, I am a Christian and I will stand by what God says, even if the whole world hates me.

If some of you don’t want to be my friends anymore, please, go ahead! Just because YOU (or the whole world for that matter) think I am wrong, DOES NOT make me wrong!

Don’t be foolish and go around thinking or saying things like “if two people love each other and want to get married, why should that bother you” or “the Bible and crazy Christians are causing problems because there is nothing wrong with two people who are in love getting married” or “Christians are so backward and stuck in the past and not changing with the times” and other such nonsense! It’s not about who we Christians are, more than who God is and what is right and pure according to Him!

Do you honestly believe that this world is a better place because of embracing “progressive” and “humanist” attitudes and thinking? Do you honestly believe that everything is better off because human beings FOOLISHLY THINK they can be good on their own and don’t need God or don’t have to follow God’s standards as it is written in the Bible? This world is going down the crapper more and more everyday because humans have kicked God out of their lives and turned their backs on Him. All morality as we know it is from the Bible (check for yourself if you like). This world has relegated God to a fairy tale figure and treats the Bible as nothing more than an outdated fairy tale (or garbage), all morality as we know it is being eroded and corrupted!

Wake up people! Repent! Repent of your sinful pride and foolishness and turn to the Lord Jesus so that you may be saved from the coming wrath and judgement!

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
(2 Peter 3:9)

Tomorrow is not a guarantee for any one of us! Get right with Him today!

God bless you all.

What does “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” in Philippians 1:21 mean?

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For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Philippians 1:21

For those who are observant, that’s the verse I have right at the top of my website. It’s not necessarily my favorite verse, but, I believe it summarizes what matters to me the most and who I am when everything is said and done. You could say that this verse is a declaration of my identity and what you can expect from/of me – be it in my words, thoughts, actions, attitudes, emotions, expressions, motivations, desires – whatever it may be – pertaining to every area of my life.

To be honest, to understand the meaning behind this verse, one need not have a seminary education or a theological degree. However, to apply this verse in your life does require great faith and commitment, that can only come from Christ, executed through the Holy Spirit.

So, what does Paul mean when he says “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain”?

First, we will quickly look at what this verse meant to Paul.

TO LIVE IS CHRIST

The Lord Jesus Christ, whom Paul (Saul at the time) had an encounter with and ended up transforming his life (read Acts 9:1-31), had become EVERYTHING to him. Jesus was Paul’s all in all.

Paul was saturated with love for the Lord Jesus and his only desire was to preach the Gospel, share Jesus with others, see people come to faith in Christ, see their lives transformed by Christ and to guide them in their walk with Christ. Again I say, Paul had no other goal or purpose in life, nothing else mattered, besides loving the Lord Jesus Christ and serving Him (by ministering to others) out of that love. To Paul, living meant loving and serving Jesus Christ.

Paul did not want to start a family, pursue a career, make a name for himself, achieve “something” with his life, enjoy living a “happy” life (not that any of this was wrong in itself) - none of this mattered to Paul. Makes sense right? If all that mattered to him was Jesus and preaching Him to everyone who was willing to hear, that was life for Paul and his all consuming passion, his ONLY desire and purpose. We can clearly see this in all of the writings of Paul in the New Testament.

TO DIE IS GAIN

If the Lord Jesus was everything to Paul and his only desire was to share the Gospel with the world, to live and breathe Christ, why does he say that to die is his gain? Why does Paul say that his death would be a good thing for him?

In 2 Corinthians 5:6-8, Paul tells us why.

“Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”

As much as Paul loved the Lord, wanted to serve Him and share the Gospel with others and discharge his apostolic duties (which the Lord Himself had handed down to Paul), Paul just wanted to be present with the Lord Jesus, in His presence, forever. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t! Paul was an amazing man of God and was/is being used by the Lord in a mighty way, but he just wanted to be with Jesus. I totally agree with Paul and can see where he is coming from. I can imagine Paul yearning to be with the Lord, thinking along the lines of “Oh to be in the presence of the Lord my God, the One who loves me so much that He died for ME and pardoned all my sins and saved me from eternal death and is using me so much though I am clearly not deserving of it”!

Don’t you get it folks? Is it better to be down here on Earth or up there in Heaven with the Lord Jesus and God the Father? If you have to think for a moment about YOUR answer to this question, then you need to examine yourself/your faith/where your heart is, with the Lord. As Christians, our desire should be for the Lord, to be with Him. BUT, that does not mean that we sit back and do nothing while we are here on Earth. Like Paul, we are meant to build an intimate relationship with our Lord Jesus and to live out that life outwardly (in words, thoughts, actions, attitude, service – because of our love and appreciation for Jesus), relying on the example of Paul and other believers who have gone before us.

Does it mean that like Paul,we SHOULD not raise a family or enjoy a good career or have hobbies or whatever else that Paul denied? No, that’s not what the Scriptures are talking about here. BUT, if those blessings become so important to us, that we are consumed by those desires and our efforts to pursue them and it gets in the way of our relationship with the Lord Jesus, loving Him and serving Him out of that love, that we begin to want to stay on Earth/live longer for those reasons, THEN it is a BIG PROBLEM that needs to be dealt with! If Earthly things begin to make you want to stick around longer and to enjoy what this world has to offer, then you need to rethink who you are and your relationship with Christ/your faith! Why? Because God has a purpose and a plan for you and wants to use you while you are here on Earth! God makes this clear in Jeremiah 29:11:

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

While we are here on Earth, we can:

  • pray for/have a desire to raise a family (be married, have children)
  • pray for a good/exciting/challenging job (since we are meant to properly earn a living)
  • pray for/have a desire for good friends and relationships, enjoy activities/hobbies

All of that’s OK because these blessings are from God Himself, as long as the Lord Jesus does not become an after thought in your life and pursuing a relationship with Him (reading/studying the Bible, prayer, being an active part of the Church), and serving Him (not just in Church, but on a daily basis) – becomes a burden to you. Watch out! As much as you pray for all those blessings I mentioned earlier, you must pray even more for the Lord to use you to reveal His glory and lead others to Jesus, here on Earth!

So, to live is Christ means that while we are alive and here on Earth, we pursue the Lord with a passion and serve Him because of our relationship with Him, ensuring that every other area of our life (family, work, relationships, hobbies etc..) is directly influenced by that relationship we have with Him. And to die is gain means that even though we have the opportunity to pursue the Lord and enjoy all these wonderful blessings from Him here on Earth, we must not hold on to everything so tight that we wouldn’t want to leave (depart/die) and join the Lord Jesus in Heaven! We must be eager for that day to come so that we can be with Him, because we love Him and He loves us dearly.

Would you want to be separated for too long from the One (God/Jesus) who loves you more than anyone else on this planet (past, present or future)?

I pray that you have a better understanding of this verse now. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to ask me.

God bless you.