The whole discussion about Christmas

Today is the big day for 2011. Families and friends gather for the big meal and exchange gifts. Ironically, in the Pope’s message, he was saying that its sad on how Christmas has become so commercial. The reality is that Christmas has never really had any connection to Christ and spirituality. While the birth of Christ is very significant, the facts remain that he was not born on what we called Christmas day. There were no Santa Claus around when Christ was born either. In fact many of the symbols we take for granted with Christmas did not originate in Israel or during the time when Christ was born. There are many articles and books that discuss this topic at length.

Don’t want to take anything away from people being loving and in a festive spirit but to connect with the Savior of the world in the context that it is done is not acceptable. God already provided his feast days for us to enjoy and spend time with family, yet most Christians dismiss those as Old Testament and done away with.

When you read Zechariah 14:16-19, we see that all nations will need to observe the feast of tabernacles in the coming Kingdom of God not Christmas. Why not start keeping the feast today? Not going to dig into that now but the feast has more spiritual meaning to God’s people than any imported pagan feast including Christmas and Easter.

Tit Bits on Church Leadership Qualities

As we discuss the whole issue of leadership especially within a church setting, there are two qualities I think that is very important. They are Conviction and Influence.

1. Conviction – This means you are absolutely convinced of the path you want to pursue. This is probably the first thing that makes a leader emerge. Bear in mind that conviction can be for good as well as bad. In the end, this person is passionate about a cause and do as much as they can to advance that cause.

2. Influence – The traditional style of leadership tends to focus too much on commanding people versus showing the way and helping people to follow a given path. Basically, influence means that you can take your conviction and give others reason why they should follow what you believe in. Not to follow you but to see what God is trying to do for mankind and fall in line with that program. Influence requires a leader to constantly be at work to showcase the way to go and not just ruling people with an iron fist approach. The bible is very clear about its expectation of people whom are in leadership position and that’s why the term shepherd emerges as one analogy for church leaders. It’s about caring, sharing and guiding the Church to achieve God’s objective.

Conclusion

If you want to be a leader then you just simply need to be convicted of something (preferably good) and sharing that conviction with others. Always be ready to listen to anyone as you will not be right all the time and conviction does not mean you are perfect.

Discussions on Church Leadership Styles

I am not against having leadership in the church but I have seen some really bad side of leadership with the same. What is the right style of leadership for a Church. First of all we need to go back to the mandate of the church. I would say its to preach the Gospel and protect those within.

How does one accomplish those primary mission without violating the main goals.

1. Church leaders are servants. They are not what you could call a general that makes decisions regardless of how the troops think. Their primary goal is to help people inside or outside to achieve God’s plan.

2. Church leaders need to listen to members of the congregation. For example, there is no value to say you will have services at 10:00 AM when its not practical for most people.

3. Church leaders should not take credit for the success of the church. Ultimately, the church belongs to God and he calls people as he wills. Therefore, when the leaders or members do the right thing and others respond, it is God who should get the credit not the leaders. Not saying you should not commend people for doing what is right but the glory always go to God.

4. Leaders need to be honest and gentle. They need to act in the interest of God and the church at all times. Too often, people start to protect their own interest, promote incompetent people and eventually hurt the church. Whenever they have issues they need to act in line with the scriptures and be gentle in all situations. This is probably one of the biggest area of problem in the church.

5. Leaders should avoid offending people. When someone speak to a large group there is potential to say things that are not in line with God’s word. In fact the bible warns a lot about offending others as this is another area where leaders have done negative things to the church on a whole.

6. Leaders must be moral examples – While you could argue that in the old testament you would be stuck with someone from the tribe of levi to carry out certain roles; The new testament seem to focus more on leaders of integrity. Leading to me in the church context is someone that is convicted to do God’s will not just having a position. Therefore, when that person fails to live up to God’s standard, he/she needs to be removed or remove themselves. There is no locked up position in leadership if you don’t lead by example.

In summary, all members of the church are leaders in some ways, they need to live their lives with the highest of standard as ultimately in God’s Kingdom, you will all be Kings and Priest. These are actually leadership roles in the traditional sense. Again, look at it correctly, those roles are servant work not to command people and take credit but to help and achieve God’s promise.

The King of the North and South

Daniel 11, is a very interesting chapter. Some people try to connect this with the end time as in the return of Christ but; could be possible this was fulfilled at the birth of Christ? Just feeling controversial today. Bear in mind that we could see the play out with Rome, Greece and Eypt during the case with these kings. But part of that seem involve Israel actually.

Take a look at verse 37; it says no regard for the God of his Fathers. This implies this person is connected with Israel in some ways. It is easy to conclude that neither the king of the south and the north were in anyway from Israel. We may argue that these rulers could have had Israelite blood in some ways or another but I doubt that is the meaning.

What it seem to imply is there could be actually three kings involved in this story. Some argue that the third king is Herod the great as he was involved during the North/South conflict and tried to kill the baby Christ which means he basically put himself against God since he would have known what Christ represented. Notice the term, “no regard for the desire of women” this could mean the case of Herod killing out the young babies in Bethlehem. Just an idea.

It’s worth looking at some more. Somehow, I doubt the issue of Europe versus some Islamic power as the meaning to these scriptures.

Feast of Tabernacles 2011 Celebration

I am very sorry for not posting more during the feast and immediately after. I was very busy with the family at the feast in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. It was great to have the family with me as most times I ended up going solo and I really hope to keep it this way regardless of where I keep the feast in the future. While I will not be going into details here on the blog, my going to the feast this year with the family was a divine miracle. Every thing just fell in place just in time to get things done. At one point not too long before the feast, it look like things would not happen then a sequence of events just happened and it blew my mind how that worked out. It proves to me that when you really want something really bad and you try your best, God will help you to achieve it.

This was great in another way as well, as I did lose my father back in Jamaica this year as well, so it was a time to get away and reflect on life in general.

The feast represent so much meaning in God's plan and maybe that is why its the last one in the sequence of holy days. The Feast represents the past, the present and future, just like that. There is so much details, we would need to cover this in another post by itself.

The last 10 Kings in Daniel

Many of the hardcore prophesy guys out there present that the last 10 kings mentioned in Daniel 2 and Daniel 7 to mean the European Union as the resurrected Roman Empire. Since this has global implications why does it have to be Europe? The bible does not say it this way actually. In fact, it seem to imply that this kingdom at the time would affect most geographies so those kings could come from different locations to create some one world government or something like. Bear in mind that the European Union has over 27 members as of today, so that is way more than 10 if you take it literally. We could argue that these 10 kings would come from the more powerful nations while the lesser countries would have to fall in line anyway.

I am not saying that people should change anything about what they believe. But I think that they should take a look from another angle and not just dwell on human interpretation as gospel.

The whole discussion of Circumcision for Christians

Funny enough, I was listening a sermon the other day about why modern Christians should be circumcised. The way it came across to me is that people decide on a doctrine and they do whatever they can to hold on to it regardless of the facts.

The main point the speaker used to defend circumcision for Christians today is that the Jerusalem Council and Paul made an error. That is really extreme non-sense in my mind. There were evidence presented to a group of Apostles in the church and they all agreed that Circumcision was not necessary for the Gentiles. In multiple Scriptures, Paul did a good job of explaining why its not necessary for both Jew and Gentile today.

The two important points to note in this discussion is that those Gentiles in the early Church received the Holy Spirit without being Circumcised. If you undervalue what getting the holy spirit means then you would have missed this important process. Secondly, Circumcision is a covenant action meaning you perform it to enter into a covenant to obey God’s law. If you break the law in any way, you would then be liable to die. This is why Christ is the new Covenant and we agree to it through baptism.

The whole point is that Circumcision is no longer a specific requirement for individuals as Christ is our circumcision as Paul said. In reality, I would prefer to be consistent with accepting Paul’s writings than some individual who is just trying to hold on to something with no real spiritual credibility.

How do we classify the truth about living?

For years in the church, we spend so much time bashing Sunday Churches, Christmas and Easter but we tend to ignore some of the bigger issues in society in respect to man relationship with God. Yes, the false teaching about God is wrong but to me they are at least seeking God in some ways despite not knowing the full truth. There is a bigger lie in society in general and it is that big focus on materialism and societal power. Look at 2 Peter 3:1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.. This scripture alone sums up our society pretty much anywhere in the world.

While I don’t think James is bashing rich people and saying that money is bad, look at his statement here James 1:9 Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. 10 But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower. 11 For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich will fade away even while they go about their business.

Later on James simplify what is in essence the main focus of our life is to seek God and be generous to others without question. Look at James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Yes, we can work hard and benefit from that but we should not just focus on advancing ourselves. We should first seen God as a basic start then try to build the character of working with others. Maybe not to hand out money or such but give some encouragement and show love as I Corinthians 13 outlines.

In your own time read Matthew 5:1-11 and evaluate yourself against these characteristics. In the end, the biggest lie our society is not seek God as their primary source and trust me just starting somewhere could make a world of difference. The truth is not primarily about who is the beast or whether you look towards Jerusalem, its about building Godly character.

What really causes economic failure

Several years ago about 20 years now, the soviet union failed. This group was the ultimate system of socialism and Communism. People would then say that wow, the capitalist system is the best form of government but today we are also seeing the failure of the western style as well.

Communism despite what most people think is a very good idea of distributing wealth and ensuring that everyone get their fair share. In fact reading the bible, it seem this aspect will be important in God’s coming kingdom.

On the other hand, capitalism has its benefits, people can freely use their creativity to generate wealth and take things to whole new levels. Some countries such as Canada and European countries does have some mixture of both systems in the fact they are doing better than the US which is probably the largest pro free market economy.

What is common about the failure of both systems? I would say its human nature. In the case of the communist system, the focus on control of people by the rulers does not fit in with equal respect and treatment. In the case of our free market model, people have become extremely selfish and focused on money. The rich has a significant proportion of the wealth.

This whole approach is not going to get better and only God’s coming kingdom will solve this problem. Bear in mind that the main reason that God will solve this problem on a practical level is simply to restore a sense of spirituality among humans. Get to the point where we can love our neighbors.

Think about it, we lament so much that the US does not have a space vehicle any more yet we can’t seem to focus on the issue of ensuring that every human being on this planet has food and shelter first. In end if we solve these little things as humans we could easily be on mars already because we would get inputs from much wider part of the world population.

We have and are failing to manage our affairs well and I am sure if God does not intervene we will destroy ourselves in the process.

The insanity of Evil – How to overcome?

As we look at this weeks happenings in Norway, yet again we see evil at play here. The general trend is that someone take an issue and get so intense about it to the point where they think an evil outcome is the only way out.

My concern is that this stuff kind of lingers in the church as well. People pick up sentimental beliefs and they find every way to justify such even in the face of contradictory facts.

Regardless of what we think, God is watching and its actually simple when you look at it objectively. Just follow God’s commandment and be a good neighbor.

If we look at 1 Peter 2:11, it says we are strangers on this earth and while we can love our individual country, our citizenship should be in God’s kingdom. I cannot think of any country that represents God’s way of life and I am hoping not to be the only one saying this. Read Hebrews 11 again and hopefully that will help to give you the right frame of mind in these difficult times.