|
DAILY PROMISE
DAILY DEVOTION
I am a christian
When I say ...'' I am a christian
I am not shouting '' I AM CLEAN LIVING''
I'M whispering '' i was lost''
Now I'M found and forgiven.
When I say ...'' I'M Christian''
I don't speak of this with pride
I 'M CONFESSING THAT I STUMBLE
and need christ to be my guide.
When I say ...'' I'M a christian"
I'M not trying to be strong
I'm professing that I'M WEAK
AND NEED HIS STRENGTH TO CARRY ON
When I say...'' I'M a christian"
I'M not bragging of success
I'M admitting I have failed
And need God to clean my mess
When I say...'' I'M a christian ''
I'm not claming to be perfect
My flows are too visible far
But,God believess I am worth it
When I say ...'' I'M a christian''
I still feel the sting of pain
I have my share of heartaches
so I call upon His name
When I say...'' I'M a christian''
I 'M not holier than thou
I'M just a simple sinner
Who recieved God's good grace, SOMEHOW..
WHAT IS PRAYER?
Prayer is basically talking with God. It is simply expressing your heart and spending time with Him. It is not a one way activity, God speaks, we listen, we speak and God listens to our hearts. Prayer can be exciting, powerful and fulfilling.
I am going to be focusing mostly on intercession, but I also wanted to provide an overview on other types of prayer that will hopefully inspire you to pursue your own personal study on this subject.
Types of Prayer
A. ThanksgivingB. Petition
C. Prevailing
D. Intercession
A. Thanksgiving - Giving thanks to God for all things in your life. We are commanded to give thanks in all circumstances. Being thankful is being grateful for his protection, provision, blessing, and most of all for his Son.
B. Petition - We ask God for the specific things we need in our life. Give us our daily bread. Give us the things we need to survive, a roof over our heads, employment etc. Petitions are usually self orientated, presenting our personal needs to our Heavenly Father, in trust that He will provide. Be specific in your petitions, pray in details and not in generalities.
C. Prevailing Prayer - fervent consistent insistent prayer until a breakthrough takes place, whether in your personal life, or for someone else (intercession). Example Believing for emotional or physical healing.
Biblical Example: Luke 18:1-8.(NIV) Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, `Grant me justice against my adversary.' "For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, `Even though I don't fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!'" And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"
D Intercession - Love on its knees in prayer, for others. Pleading on behalf of the needs of someone else. Standing in the gap, that is, praying prayers of repentance, etc., identifying yourself with the sins of those for which you are in prayer.
Biblical Example: Nehemiah, a godly man, identified with the sins of his people, praying prayers of repentance, asking the Lord to forgive and to have mercy and to raise up once again the nation of Israel.
Confirmation of Conversion
Reading: John 3:1-16
"If any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things
have passed away; behold, all things have become new" (2 Cor 5:17)
Can we identify a genuine experience of salvation? Surely yes!
First of all, there will be the true peace and joy through the Holy Spirit in the heart! When we make peace with God we have the peace of God. Jesus called it the peace the world cannot give (Jn 14:27). The burden of sin is rolled away! Guilt is gone! The converted man is overflowing with gratitude to God. He shouts with exuberance, "Thank you, Lord, thank You!" If over one sinner who repents there is great joy among the angels "in Heaven," will the angels "on earth" around him stay unmoved (Lk 15:10)?
Secondly, the converted man begins to hate sin and the evil ways of the world. The sinful acts he was indulging in during the past so willingly appear obnoxious to him now. The joy of the Lord has replaced the silly pleasures of sin. This does not mean he will never ever commit any sin. Before getting saved he was like a pig; he would be wallowing in the mire! Now he is a lamb. Even if someone pushes the lamb into the mire, it will atonce jump out and not stay there. Have you understood the difference? A child of God will not "live" in sin!
Thirdly, the saved man begins to love Bible meditation, prayer and fellowship of God's children. It is no more the routine of reading the Bible for a few minutes as a religious custom, but a delightful desire to spend hours in meditating it (Psa 1:2). Prayer becomes his very breath. Earlier he had not known God. But now he knows God as his Father. Hence this longing to speak to Him! He begins to feel and appreciate the love of God who has redeemed him (1 Jn 3:1). Fellowship with saints is necessary to comprehend the width, length, depth and height of that love (Eph 3:18).
Fourthly, those who are saved will walk in love with others (1 Jn 3:14). They will restitute matters with the wronged (Mt 5:23,24). Loving the enemies, the persecutors and the opposers is a proof of our being children to a God of love (Mt 5:43-48).
Fifthly, the saved man will just be anxious to share his new-found joy with others (Jn 4:28,29; Mk 5:19). "Let the world get the joy I got!"- This will be his motto.
More about Jesus would I know,More of His grace to others show;
More of His saving fullness see;
More of His love-who died for me!
(Eliza E. Hewitt, 1851-1920)
Letter From Hell. - Scary but true
“The more I study science the more I believe in God.”
Nobel Prize: Albert Einstein (1879–1955) was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for
his contributions to Quantum Theory and for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric
effect. Einstein is one of the founders of modern physics; he is the author of the Theory of
Relativity. According to the world media (Reuters, December 2000) Einstein is “the personality
of the second millennium.”
Nationality: German; later Swiss and American citizen
Education: Ph.D. in physics, University of Zurich, Switzerland, 1905
Occupation: Patent Examiner in the Swiss Patent Office, Bern, 1902-1908; Professor of
Physics at the Universities of Zurich, Prague, Bern, and Princeton, NJ.
*****
1. “I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon,
in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.”
(Einstein, as cited in Ronald Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times, London, Hodder and Stoughton
Ltd., 1973, 33).
2. “We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many
different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not
know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly
suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books, but doesn’t know what it is.
That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.
We see a Universe marvellously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand
these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the
constellations.” (Einstein, as cited in Denis Brian, Einstein: A Life, New York, John Wiley and
Sons, 1996, 186).
3. “If one purges the Judaism of the Prophets and Christianity as Jesus Christ taught it of all
subsequent additions, especially those of the priests, one is left with a teaching which is
capable of curing all the social ills of humanity. It is the duty of every man of good will to
strive steadfastly in his own little world to make this teaching of pure humanity a living
force, so far as he can.” (Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, New York, Bonanza Books,
1954, 184-185).
4. “After all, haven’t the differences between Jew and Christian been overexaggerated by
fanatics on both sides? We both are living under God’s approval, and nurture almost identical
spiritual capacities. Jew or Gentile, bond or free, all are God’s own.” (Einstein, as cited in
H.G. Garbedian, Albert Einstein: Maker of Universes, New York, Funk and Wagnalls Co.,
1939, 267).
5. “Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a
Spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe – a Spirit vastly superior to that of man, and
one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the
pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different
from the religiosity of someone more naive.” (Einstein 1936, as cited in Dukas and Hoffmann,
Albert Einstein: The Human Side, Princeton University Press, 1979, 33).
6. “The deeper one penetrates into nature’s secrets, the greater becomes one’s respect for
God.” (Einstein, as cited in Brian 1996, 119).
7. “The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the
mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can
no longer stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. That deeply emotional conviction of the
presence of a superior Reasoning Power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible Universe,
forms my idea of God.” (Einstein, as cited in Libby Anfinsen 1995).
8. “My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior Spirit that reveals
itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of
reality.” (Einstein 1936, as cited in Dukas and Hoffmann 1979, 66).
3
9. “The more I study science the more I believe in God.” (Einstein, as cited in Holt 1997).
10. Max Jammer (Professor Emeritus of Physics and author of the biographical book Einstein
and Religion, 2002) claims that Einstein’s well-known dictum,
“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind”,
can serve as an epitome and quintessence of Einstein’s religious philosophy. (Jammer 2002;
Einstein 1967, 30).
11. “The highest principles for our aspirations and judgments are given to us in the Jewish-
Christian religious tradition. It is a very high goal which, with our weak powers, we can reach
only very inadequately, but which gives a sure foundation to our aspirations and valuations.”
(Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years, New Jersey, Littlefield, Adams and Co., 1967, 27).
12. “In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able
to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry
is that they quote me for the support of such views.” (Einstein, as cited in Clark 1973, 400;
and Jammer 2002, 97).
13. Concerning the fanatical atheists Einstein pointed out:
“Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance
of the religious fanatics and comes from the same source. They are like slaves who are still
feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are
creatures who – in their grudge against the traditional ‘opium for the people’ – cannot bear
the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature does not become smaller because one
cannot measure it by the standards of human moral and human aims.” (Einstein, as cited in
Max Jammer, Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology, Princeton University Press, 2002,
97).
14. “True religion is real living – living with all one’s soul, with all one’s goodness and
righteousness” (Einstein, as cited in Garbedian 1939, 267).
15. “Certain it is that a conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality or intelligibility
of the world lies behind all scientific work of a higher order.
… This firm belief, a belief bound up with deep feeling, in a superior Mind that reveals itself
in the world of experience, represents my conception of God.” (Einstein 1973, 255).
16. “Strenuous intellectual work and the study of God’s Nature are the angels that will lead
me through all the troubles of this life with consolation, strength, and uncompromising
rigor.” (Einstein, as cited in Calaprice 2000, ch. 1).
17. Einstein’s attitude towards Jesus Christ was expressed in an interview, which the great
scientist gave to the American magazine The Saturday Evening Post (26 October 1929):
“- To what extent are you influenced by Christianity?
- As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am
enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.
-
No comments:
Post a Comment