Spiritual Growth

The good book, the bible, starts with Genesis, which explains how everything is created. The Bible starts with the first verse and first number, which says:   “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)   The first act of God is to create heaven, where angels and Jesus live, and the formless and void earth. The heaven that the bible is speaking about above is not the sky that we consider as the universe because it will be created later on. Since this heaven, stated in Genesis 1:1 above, is created heaven, it also implies there is another uncreated heaven. This is because God was alive in his eternal heaven for eternity before the created heaven was created by him. Now, let us focus on the second number of the first verse, which is stated below:   “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:2)   Now darkness exists ...

The good book, the Bible, says that love is more important than knowledge. It is better if faithful have love built with the knowledge of God and his ways, as children God could be lost in the jungle of the devil due to lack of knowledge. If we must choose, however, love without knowledge is more useful than knowledge without love.   The disciple John claims that he is loved by the lord the most, while Peter claims that he loved the lord the most. Jesus did ask Peter 3 times, to remind him of his evil temptation to challenge the word of the lord, if he loves the lord the most. Peter, every time, answered yes, and every answer was followed by the order that Peter should look after the church. Jesus did not give his church to John, the beloved disciple, but to Peter who loved the lord the most, while reminding him to correct his evil temptation to challenge the word of the Lord. The trusted persons with the management of the church are not those who are loved by the lord the most...

Imagine a father having four children. The firstborn has business experience and is a good businessman, while the youngest is the wrong kind with an uncultivated character. The second born is a good and well-cultivated family person and the next one is a less sociable but creative person. Let us also imagine that he is going to a distant location for some years and he advises them to look after each other, as family.   When he comes back, after years of exile, he finds the firstborn wealthy enjoying material life without his brothers; the youngest child is damaged, broken, and in prison; the family man is sick and poor; and the other son is isolated without wife and children. What is worse is that they see each other as distant relatives without love and unity. The rich demand respect, the outlaw demands independence, the isolated do not want to see them at all, and the family man complains that he has no family. What units them is they hate each other and they don’t want to se...

After John the Baptist questioned the identity of Jesus by saying “Is it you who has to come or should we wait for another one?”, Jesus said nobody born of women is greater than John the Baptist by calling, yet the least in kingdom of heaven is higher than him by choice. John the Baptist was first by calling (of God) but the least by choice (based on his performance). Jesus also said: why you go to see in the wildness “A reed shaken with the wind? …. A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. But what you went out to see? A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.”   The most important work of God on this earth is the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to stand on the right side of the heavenly father. John was the prophet selected to prepare the road of the lord, which is the road of this most important work of God. John was the initial spiritual guide for most followers of Jesus. He was the prepared human...

When the first temple of Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jewish people were taken away into Babylonian exile, the Babylonian king, who conquered Jerusalem, repopulated the land with idol worshipers from foreign lands. Those idol worshipers were “forced” to worship the God of Israel, side by side with other idols, to save themselves from snake attacks that they were exposed to. God becomes one of their idols, therefore. After they bow to their wood, sacrifice to their stone, pray toward their gold, and worship their silver, then after they also worship the God of Israel. I guess the God of Israel is given the “honor” of being counted equal to their idols made of stone, wood, gold, and silver. Could we call them the children of Abraham? What about the faith of Abraham?          When Jerusalem was being rebuilt and the new temple’s work was started, after 70 years of judgmental exile, there were two groups of strangers in the land. One group of strangers ...

  The good book, the Bible, says that our spiritual father is the Heavenly Father, and our teacher and leader is the lord Jesus Christ. Yes, we have brothers and sisters who serve as overwatchers but they are not the Heavenly Father to be our spiritual fathers. They are just good brothers and sisters who serve under the Heavenly Father, as his eye and mouth, for the commonwealth of the assembly of the lord. They are tools of God who controls them to do his will rather than their will. As a hummer cannot say “I make a table” and a sword cannot say “I won a battle” but only the man who operates them can say so, those who serve as over watchers cannot say they father anyone. Those fools, with all due respect, cannot even manage their family by themselves if you know how hard it is to manage a family, dears. By the grace of God which works in them, however, God is watching the assembly through them. God is making the work, and they are in apprenticeship training as visible representati...