Prodigal Son and Parable

The parable of the prodigal son One of the most well known parables of the gospels is the parable of the prodigal son. We find it in Luke’s gospel where, starting from 15:11 we read: Luke 15:11-24 "Then He [the Lord Jesus] said: "A certain man had two sons. "And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.' So he divided to them his livelihood. "And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. "But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. "Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. "And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. "But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants." And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. "And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. And they began to be merry." The Son of God came to find and save the lost (Matthew 18:11). The one that comes to Him will never be cast out, says the Word (John 6:37). It does not matter what one has done or not. It does not matter what is his/her past. What the Son of God wants is not to condemn but to save (John 3:17). The compassion of the father of this parable is a figure of the compassion of the Father God (Jesus said the parable in relation of the joy occurring in heaven, when a sinner returns). God "wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (I Timothy 2:4). The son of this parable could not wait for his father to die. He wanted the property right and then, though his father was still alive. Once he put his hands on it, gathered all together and left for a "far country". Who knows what he might have heard for this country. Advertisements, TV, radio (if they existed) would speak for this country. If he had lots of money, he could live the "big life" there – the "big life" the Word of God describes with two words: "prodigal living". At the end, the balloon blow out and the once son-of-a-rich-father, became poor and hungry. His hunger was actually so much that he didn’t have anything to eat - the pigs were fed more than him! And then, something critical happened: "he came to himself" and he thought: "How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants." The prodigal son came to himself! The time that one "comes to himself" is usually not the time that everything goes well, but the time that, as with this son, he may not even have pots to satisfy his hunger. The son came therefore to himself and took the way of return to his home. All the thoughts he made were right and just: after what he had done, he had no right to be called a son of this father. He had eaten up his labours by living prodigally. Yet the Father saw him from afar. This shows that he was watching the road. Though the son had taken his inheritance and left the home, the father was not indifferent. He was waiting day after day for him to return. If he could find him, he would go and plead him to come back - as the Lord pleads us to be reconciled with Him (II Corinthians 5:20-21). The Father was waiting. He was watching the road, and as soon as he saw his son coming, he RAN to meet him ! Really what a touching picture: a father running to hug and kiss a son that ate up his property by living prodigally. However, is it not the same with God? We were dead in sins and trespasses, children of wrath, and yet He saved us, He raised us together with Christ and He sited us with Him in the heavenlies. Not because of our works (we were dead) BUT BECAUSE OF THE MULTITUDE OF HIS LOVE (Ephesians 2:4). As the father of the parable, God waits for the lost sheep, and when one returns, HE RUNS TO HUG HIM/HER AND KISS THEM. THE FATHER FORGETS AND DELETES ALL THE PAST OF EVERY SON THAT RETURNS. HE WILL NOT BRING TO JUDGMENT ANY BELIEVER, ANY SHEEP THAT RETURNED, FOR WHAT WAS DONE IN THE TIME HE WAS LOST. "IF ANYONE IS IN CHRIST , HE IS A NEW CREATION; OLD THINGS HAVE PASSED AWAY; BEHOLD ALL THINGS HAVE BECOME NEW" (II Corinthians 5:17) says the Word of God. So, the father of the parable instead of kicking out his son – as many fathers do when they find out the rebellions of their children, even though they may have repented – instead of putting him in a trial period, he hugged him, he kissed him and killed the fattest calf he had – ALL STARTED TO BE MERRY. Similar is the joy in heaven when a sinner returns. What the Lord desires is not the condemnation of the sinner. If you have been told that God waits with a stock whip if you turn to Him, please hear this: GOD IS WAITING FOR YOU LIKE THE FATHER OF THE PRODIGAL SON. HE WAITS FOR YOU AND ONCE HE SEES YOU COMING, HE RUNS TO HUG YOU, KISS YOU AND START A BRIGHT CELEBRATION FOR YOUR RETURN. "I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance" (Luke 15:7)  

Faith and Works

Faith and works About good works, faith and salvation James 2:14 tells us: James 2:14  “What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?” Many brothers are perplexed with this passage, thinking that James contradicts Paul, who so many times said that a man is saved and justified freely, without any works, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His resurrection (see the articles: “Righteousness and the Bible” and “Saved and righteous by faith”) Something that we need to make clear right from the beginning is that the Word of God never contradicts itself. What is usually happening, and is happening also with this passage, is a problem of understanding what the Word of God tells us. The purpose of this article is to help the reader in the understanding of this passage of James 2 as well as to give him a more complete view about salvation. Faith and works: he who has true faith he will also have works. Starting from the first part of James 2:14, we see that James is speaking for “someone that says he has faith”. The verbal expression of one’s faith i.e. If someone says he has faith, is not enough to save him. In fact, Paul tells us the same too, in Romans 10:9-10, where we read: “if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” For somebody to be saved what is required is real faith, faith from the heart. Such faith the Word of God means when it speaks about faith. Faith that is simply in the mouth, i.e. does not exist in the heart is not real faith. As the Lord said: “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). The confession of faith is meant to be a confession that comes from a heart that has believed. Otherwise it is a fake confession. If therefore as James 2 says “someone says he has faith”, two things may happen: His confession is genuine i.e. what he says is true, or what he says is not genuine i.e. though he says that he has faith he actually does not have. Let’s get the first case, the case of a genuine confession. This confession being genuine is a confession of the faith that is already in the heart. In this case natural consequence of this faith is the fruit, the works. To say it differently: though the works do not precede salvation and faith (i.e. we are not saved through works), they are however natural consequence of salvation, they are coming as a fruit, as a result of the faith present in the heart. As the Lord said: Luke 6:43-45  “a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” The fruit, the works of every man is the result of what is in his heart. As we also read in Romans 10:10, “with the heart one believes .. and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation”. In other words the mouth is to always follow what is in the heart. There is salvation not when the mouth simply confesses but when the heart has believed and then as a result the mouth confesses this faith. And since such treasure, such tree, such faith exists in the heart it is natural to see from that tree the respective good fruit too. Therefore the good works is something very natural, as natural is for the good tree to give good fruit. Faith and works: the works, proof whose children we are. When somebody is born again (Ephesians 1:13) he is sealed with the holy spirit, receives a new nature and becomes a child of God. This new nature gives fruit - when, as expected, we walk with it. As Paul says about this fruit: Galatians 5:22-23  “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” All these are characteristics of God too. He is kind, good, long-suffering, gentle, loving, faithful etc. Now, since we are children of God – and I’m referring here to people who have genuinely believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Messiah and the Son of God – it is absolutely normal to exhibit the same characteristics as our Father i.e. to be good, kind, joyful, with longsuffering, gentleness and self control etc. It is normal to resemble Him, reflect Him. The same happens with our kids: it is normal for them to resemble us, to look like us, as they are our kids. The children of God therefore resemble, reflect God, Who lives in the inside of them. Obviously this cannot happen for those who are not His children: they do not and cannot resemble God as they are not His children. And how somebody resembles, reflects God? Very simply: in the characteristics he exhibits, in the fruit he bears, in his works. The works, the fruit show whose children we really are. See this dialogue between Jesus and certain Jews, who, as the context tells us (John 8:30-31) had in fact believed in Him but then eventually, after the below conversation, they wanted to stone Him (John 8:59)! John 8:38-44  “I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and you do that which you have seen with your father. They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said unto them, If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. You do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, [even] God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, you would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do.” These people believed that God was their Father. But, if God was really their Father they would do His works. They however were doing the works of the devil. Who therefore was their father? He whose works they were doing: the devil. What I want to say with the above is that the works, the fruit of every man is the proof whose child he or she is. If somebody is really a child of God he will do the works of God and in fact he will do them very naturally as they are part of his spiritual DNA. God has made him for this. As Ephesians 2:10 tells us we were created for, made for, it is in our spiritual DNA to do, the good works God has prepared for us. The works therefore though they do not precede faith and salvation, they indeed follow it. Faith that has not given fruit, faith without works, is truly as James 2 says dead. I know that some may have difficulty to believe what I’m saying, as in some churches there is a teaching that says “confess Jesus as Lord and you will be saved”. This however is not true. „Believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead and then confess Him as Lord. Then you will be saved“ (Romans 10:9-10). This is right. It is the faith that saves and the confession simply confesses this faith. As the Lord said: Matthew 7:21  “Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” For somebody to say “Lord, Lord” is not enough. He needs also to mean it. And if he means it or not will be shown by the fruit, by whether he does the will of the Father. And yes somebody may fall into mistakes that may affect, even seriously, his fruitfulness. However it cannot happen that he or she is permanently fruitless. A Christian that has never brought forth fruit is simply not a Christian1. I know that this may not sit well for certain readers but this I believe is the truth of the Word. To sum it up: when there is true faith in the heart of a man, the works will come out naturally, as fruit comes our naturally from a tree. We are created for, made for, it is natural to us to do, the good works that God has already prepared for us (Ephesians 2:10). This is therefore the one case of man: the case of the man whose confession is a result of the faith he has in his heart, it is in other words REAL. Faith and works: he who “says he has faith”. Apart now from this case, there is also another case. This is the case of the faith that “someone says he has”, but it is faith only in words. This is the faith of the man that has not really believed in his heart and who, for various reasons, may pretend, even without realizing it himself many times, to be a believer. Such a man, a man that “says he has faith” but actually he does not, is NOT a born again man and therefore the only that he has is the sinful nature of Adam i.e. he has a tree that is rotten and sick. And from such a tree there is no way to get good fruit. If therefore “someone says he has faith”, but the respective good fruit is missing and this happens on a permanent basis, we have to wonder whether the faith that he says he has is a genuine faith. As the Lord said: “every tree is known by its own fruit” (Luke 6:44). Seeing the fruit we know the tree. Here I need to make clear that this article does not propagate to make people suspicious about the salvation of others. God will judge the work of everybody and He knows our hearts. What this article aims to is to wake up the reader who is complacent because some time, somewhere, he made a confession of faith without any transformation ever happening to his life. If somebody believes that because of a confession alone he is going to be saved he deceives himself. It is the faith that saves! And if faith is present then there is really no need for anybody “to say that he has faith”: this faith will be manifested through the works, the fruit it bears. Having said the above let us now read James 2:14 once again: “What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can [the] faith [that he says that he has] save him?” Can the faith that is only in words and not in the heart save the one that says he has it? NO. The fruit, the walk in the works that God has prepared for us and He has created us for (Ephesians 2:10) is the natural result of the faith. As from an orange tree we get oranges, so also from the born again believer, the believer that has the spirit of God in him, we get the respective fruit. If somebody says he has faith but he never has the good fruit that accompanies it then probably he does not have the faith he says he has. Such faith, faith in words and only in words, is a dead faith like the dead tree that gives nothing. And to this man James says: “Can [the] faith [that he says he has] save him?”. And the answer is clearly: NO.

Gideon and Call by God

Judges 6:6-16 : Gideon's encounter with the Lord In Judges 6 is recorded the encounter of the Lord with Gideon - the man through whom God would save Israel from the slavery to the Medianites. Verses 1-10 give us the situation that Israel was in at that time: Judges 6:6-10 "Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD. So the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian for seven years, and the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of the Midianites, the children of Israel made for themselves the dens, the caves, and the strongholds which are in the mountains. So it was, whenever Israel had sown, Midianites would come up; also Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. Then they would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor donkey. For they would come up with their livestock and their tents, coming in as numerous as locusts; both they and their camels were without number; and they would enter the land to destroy it. So Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites, and the children of Israel cried out to the LORD." The reason the sons of Israel turned to the Lord was their deep poverty and distress, which in turn came as a result of their rebellion and disobedience against the Lord. Then verses 8-10 tells us what the Lord did: Judges 6:8-10 "And it came to pass, when the children of Israel cried out to the LORD because of the Midianites, that the LORD sent a prophet to the children of Israel, who said to them, "Thus says the LORD God of Israel: I brought you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of bondage; and I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land. Also I said to you, "I am the LORD your God; do not fear the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell." But you have not obeyed My voice." As answer to the Israel’s plea for help, the Lord send a prophet who told them what He had done for them and how disobediently they behaved. This answer though didn’t mean that He would not help them. Israel behaved disobediently, but they finally returned and this was the important. Thus in verse 11 we read: "Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, "The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valour!" The Lord’s call didn’t come to somebody sitting in a palace. It didn’t come to someone that was especially trained for this mission, to a great fighter let’s say, or to a man that was a leader in Israel. The call of the Lord came to a peasant that was threshing wheat, in order to hide it from the Medianites. "Man looks at the at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart" says the Word (I Samuel 16:7). He looks at the heart and He calls. He calls anybody. You, that you may not have a Ph.D. in theology and you may have never been in a pulpit. Yet, you have Christ. You are a member of His body with the same significant and critical role as any member of your physical body has. So the Lord called Gideon, a peasant that was threshing wheat, to do his work. Was he really looking a "mighty man of valour"? He was threshing the wheat to HIDE IT from the Medianites. And yet that is what exactly you are, "a mighty man (or woman) of valour" when the Lord is with you. "The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?" (Psalms 27:1), David said. "If God is for us, who can be against us" (Romans 8:31), "I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS ME" (Philippians 4:13) Paul said. "Without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), the Lord said. It does not matter what we have or what we can do – without the Lord, from ourselves, we can do nothing – but what He can do through us, if we obey to what He calls us. And carrying on to verse 13: "Gideon said to Him, "O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites." Had Gideon understood that he was speaking with an angel of the Lord? Probably not yet, as only later in verse 22 he admitted it. Gideon answered with a "why" to the Lord’s greeting that opened their conversation. "If the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us". Some brothers and sisters look at the past, to the so and so event and they make the same thoughts as Gideon: "if the Lord is with me, then why all this happened to me"? "I will never leave you nor forsaken you" (Hebrews 13:5) says the Word though. The Lord will never leave you. He will never forsaken you even if difficult times may arise, and they will arise in life. However, God didn’t wait till Gideon had no question. Verse 14 gives us His reply: "Then the LORD turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?" "Have I not sent you?" It does not matter who you are and what are your credentials. These may matter for men. Men look at titles and names. However the Lord does not – He looks only at the heart. What really matters is that He has sent you. If the Lord sends you and you obey to His instructions, then you will succeed to whatever your mission may be, even if it is the liberation of a whole nation, as here with Gideon. And the conversation carries on in verses 15-16 Judges 6:15-16 "So he said to Him, "O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house." And the LORD said to him, "BUT I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man." Gideon was the smallest of the small. His words remind me the similar conversation between Jeremiah and the Lord, in the beginning of Jeremiah’s ministry. Jeremiah 1:4-8 "Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations." Then said I: "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth." But the LORD said to me: "Do not say, I am a youth,' For you shall go to all to whom I send you, And whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, For I am with you to deliver you," says the LORD." Yes of course, physically speaking, you may not be the most trained or admitted for this work. Physically speaking, there might be others, better than Gideon, from a more well known family or tribe that might be more acceptable. There might be also speakers in Jeremiah’s time that could handle language better than him. However, again it does not matter what you can do but what God can do through you. When the Lord has called you for a work and you obey Him there is no chance of failure. FOR HE IS WITH YOU. To what Gideon is saying, God does not answer that he is wrong. He replies however with a BUT. "Gideon it may even be like what you have said. BUT YOU FORGOT SOMETHING: I WILL BE WITH YOU AND IF I’M WITH YOU THEN ALL ELSE IS NEEDLESS. THE ONLY THAT IS NEEDED IS TO BELIEVE ME." And Gideon did believe God and the Lord delivered through him the Israel from the Midianites. May we also do the same. May we also believe, follow and obey God to whatever He has called us.  

Holy Spirit before and After Pantecost

The holy spirit before and after Pentecost Therefore, God could no more communicate with him since he lacked the necessary receiver i.e. spirit. In this issue, we will examine the situation regarding the availability of spirit after Adam’s fall. Thus this issue could also very well be called "body, soul, spirit. (part II)". However, I preferred to call it "Pentecost and new birth realities" for the reason that Pentecost is going to be our central point of reference. 1. The man after Adam's fall and before Pentecost As it was said, God is spirit and therefore to communicate with Him, and He with you, you need to have spirit. Since spirit was not available after Adam’s fall, what was happening during that period was that God put His spirit upon those who He wanted to communicate with. This does not mean that spirit was available. From Genesis to Acts, there is no record of any instruction as how to receive spirit, for the simple reason that spirit was not available. John 7:37-39 tells us: John 7:37-39 "On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water. But this he spoke concerning the spirit which those believing in him would receive; for the holy spirit was not yet given; because Jesus was not yet glorified." According to this passage, holy spirit was not available at the time that Jesus Christ spoke these words and of course it was not available before that time as well. During all this period (from Adam’s fall to the day of Pentecost) if God wanted to communicate with someone, He put His spirit upon him. Let’s see some examples from the Old Testament starting from Numbers 11:16-17. According to the context, Moses wanted helpers for the governing of the people of Israel and God answered his request in verses 16-17: Numbers 11:16-17 "So the Lord said unto Moses: "Gather to Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them; bring them to the tabernacle of meeting, that they may stand there with you. Then I will come down and talk with you there. I will take of the spirit that is upon you, and will put the same upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you may not bear it yourself alone." As it is clear from this passage, Moses had spirit and he had it upon him. It is significant to point out two things here: first that the spirit was not in him, but upon him. When something is in you, it cannot be separated from you. It is part of your being. However, when something is upon you, then it is not one with you. Second: the fact that Moses had the spirit of God upon him, it was not because he decided that he would like to have spirit. Even if he decided that he would like to have spirit, there was no guarantee that he would have, for the simple reason hat spirit was not available. Actually, it was God that decided to put His spirit upon Moses and not the other way round. The same is true for those seventy men as well: the spirit of God was upon them, not because they decided to receive it but because God put it to make possible communication with them. Having seen this case, let’s see some more passages on the same topic. So: Judges 3:9-10 "When the children of Israel cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the children of Israel who delivered them, even Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and he judged Israel and went out to war ....." Did Othniel have spirit before? No. God put it upon him for the reason that he was the judge of Israel and God wanted to communicate with him. Let’s see another example: Judges 6:33-34 "Then all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east gathered together; and they crossed over and encamped in the valley of Jezreel. But the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet [to gather the people of Israel for war]; and the Abiezernites gathered behind him." Did Gideon have spirit before? No. Was it that Gideon received the spirit from God or that God put the spirit upon Gideon? To receive something it must be available and spirit was not available after Adam’s fall. So it was God Who chose to put His spirit upon Gideon for the reason that Gideon was the judge of Israel and God wanted to communicate with him. Similar examples are many in the Old Testament. Also if one examines the case of Saul, the first king of Israel, it can be seen that when he disobeyed God, the spirit of God that was upon him departed from him (see: I Samuel 15:26, 16:14). So to summarize, Adam and Eve were originally body, soul and spirit. However, in the day that they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they lost the spirit. When you lose a form of life that is called death. That’s why they died in that day, exactly as God had said. From that time onwards spirit was not available. On the other hand, for God to communicate with people they have to have spirit. For this reason during this period, God had to put His spirit upon certain men of His choice. For example, all the prophets had the spirit of God upon them. God put it upon them to give them revelation. So, regarding the period before the day of Pentecost three things are noteworthy: 1. Spirit was not available. 2. God put his spirit upon those who He wanted to communicate with. 3. They could lose the spirit, which means that they had it under restrictions. 2. New Birth Having seen what was the situation before the day of Pentecost it is now time to see what happens after the day of Pentecost. To see this, let’s start examining some things that Jesus Christ said in the gospels. As we read the corresponding records, we must bear in mind that at the time that Jesus Christ was on earth, spirit was not available as we have already seen from John 7:37-39. Therefore, whatever we see in the gospels about spirit it refers prophetically to the time that spirit would become available. Bearing this in mind, let’s have a look at John 3:1-6 : John 3:1-6 "There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him." Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say unto you, unless one is born again [the Greek text reads "born from above"], he cannot see the kingdom of God." According to Jesus Christ no man can enter the kingdom of God, if he isn’t born again or born from above. This is probably enough to resolve many arguments and guesses as to how one makes it to heaven. The answer is simple: You must be born from above. Now what does this "born from above" mean? The only birth that most of us know is the birth that was given to us by our parents. Nevertheless, here Jesus Christ tells us that there is one more birth, which is the prerequisite to "see the kingdom of God". Questions may come immediately to our minds: "How does this birth occur?", "who is the parent of this birth?", "what do I receive from this birth?". How will we answer these questions? By going to the Bible and leave it to interpret itself. So let’s see what it says: John 3:4-5 "Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born? Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." In this passage Jesus Christ explains us that for a man to enter the kingdom of God he should be born of water and of the spirit. To be born of water means the first birth. Without having been born once, how could you be born again? He tells us also that one should be born of the spirit. The word "spirit" has various usages in the Bible. However, most of the usages refer either to God who is spirit (John 4:24 "God is spirit") or to the spirit that God gives. In the above passage "born of the Spirit" means born of God Who is spirit. In the first birth you were born "of water". In the second birth you are born of the spirit i.e. you are born of God. That in this second birth you are born of God is also clear in verse 6 where we also learn what is received by this birth: John 3:6 "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Again the two births are put together in the same sentence but this time the purpose is to contrast them and to show that they are entirely different. From the first birth you received what your parents are i.e. flesh. Similarly, from the second birth you received what your parent, God, is i.e. spirit. Having answered the question about the second birth and who is the parent of this birth let’s move one step ahead to examine how this second birth occurs. Again the Bible is very sharp and clear in its answers: I John 5:1 "whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God" In this passage the Word of God tells us that to be born of God what is needed is to believe that Jesus is the Christ i.e the Messiah, the Saviour. Yes, so simple it is. Take a minute to think about it. If you are born of God what are you then? A child of God. A son or a daughter of God!! That is exactly what the epistle to Galatians also declares : Galatians 3:26 "For you are all the children of God by faith (believing) in Christ Jesus." To be a child of someone requires birth. And in the above given passages the Word of God declares that at the time that one believes in Jesus Christ is born of God. Do you believe in Jesus Christ? If yes, who is your Father? God is your Father. Is anyone more powerful than God? NO. What is impossible for Him? Nothing. Most people, because of either religion or tradition, think that God is someone that you cannot approach. Someone that is far from them and He becomes a bit nearer only after they follow a certain ritual or do certain religious works. If you have the same idea, you must change it if you want to fully exploit the power that God has put in you when He made you His child. Instead of the religious ideas that you may have collected from the church, the school and the family put on what the Word of God says: CHILD OF GOD. Let’s expand a bit more on this. Isaiah 49:15 "Can a woman forget her nursing child and not have compassion on the son of her womb?" If no then where do all these children that live in the streets and in the institutions come from? That’s why God says: Isaiah 49:15 "Surely they may forget" However, it does not stop there. It continues: Isaiah 49:15 "yet I will not forget you" Many parents forget or mistreat their children. However, God will never forget you. Do you know why? Because you are His child and He loves you. Also: Hebrews 13:5 "Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." So we may boldly say: "The Lord is my helper; I will nor fear. What can man do to me?" Who said that? Not me. God ("He Himself") said it. He promises that He will never leave you nor forsake you. Your friends may leave you, the government may abandon you, your boss may forsake you. But God will never leave you because you are His child. If you feel forgotten, neglected etc. it is because you look upon wrong things. Look to God your Father; develop a father-child relationship with Him and you will see how much more light your life will have. You also may boldly say: "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can a man do to me?" 3. Pentecost: the day of a new beginning Returning now to our initial point, remember that spirit was lost in the day that Adam sinned. Also remember, that spirit was not available, after that day. Nevertheless, in John 3:6 Jesus Christ, speaking prophetically to Nicodemus, said that one could again have spirit. The point in time where spirit was again made available was the day of Pentecost, almost 2,000 years ago. So let’s read to see what happened that day: Acts 2:1-4 "When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the holy spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance." What is described above is the first outpouring of the holy spirit, that happened in the day of Pentecost. From that day onwards, holy spirit is again available and everyone that believes in Jesus Christ receives it and he can also manifest it with the nine ways listed in I Corinthians 12:7-10. One of these ways is speaking in tongues and it is this manifestation that was operated in the above passage of Acts. 4. Before Pentecost and after Pentecost: comparisons   4.1 The spirit is again available It is now interesting to compare the situation after Pentecost with the one before Pentecost. As we have already seen, before the day of Pentecost, spirit was not available. However, from that day and because of what Jesus Christ accomplished, spirit is again available and you can again be body, soul and spirit. What a dramatic change! But it is not the only one. 4.2 The spirit is in you: you are the temple of God We saw previously that before Pentecost people had the spirit of God upon them. It wasn’t in them. On Pentecost this situation also changed dramatically. From that day onwards, not only everyone that believes in Jesus Christ receives holy spirit, but also this spirit is in him. Let’s see some scriptures on this: I Corinthians 6:19 "Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the holy spirit which is IN you, which you have from God.....?" Where does the holy spirit, that you received when you believed in Jesus Christ, dwell? IN YOU. It is not upon you . It is IN you. I Corinthians 3:16 "Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the spirit of God dwells in you?" Again where does the spirit of God dwell? Many people, believe that the spirit of God dwells, in the so and so church of the so and so denomination. How much have people misunderstood what the Bible says? Here the Word of God tells us , that the spirit of God dwells IN you. It also says that "YOU are the temple of God". So the temple of God is not the church at the corner of the street but YOU and do you know why? Because the spirit of God dwells IN you. Here is the great difference between having the spirit upon you (before the day of Pentecost) and having the spirit in you (from the day of Pentecost). Before the day of Pentecost, those few people who had the spirit of God upon them, were not the temple of God for the simple reason that the spirit of God wasn’t in them but upon them. That is the reason that the temple of Solomon was constructed. It was a temporary dwelling place of God. But today, there is no more need for man-made temples for the reason that today God does not dwell in buildings, but in men that love Him. This fact makes any man-made building, in which it is supposed that God dwells, at least a waste of time and money. 4.3 You cannot lose the spirit Finally, it is very interesting to see whether you can lose the spirit that God gave you or not. We saw that Adam had the spirit under the restriction that he wouldn’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When he violated this condition, he lost the spirit. Similarly, before the day of Pentecost, the people who had the spirit upon them, they had it under restrictions. So when Saul disobeyed God, he lost it. What about today? For one more time the difference is great. Today you don’t have the spirit under restrictions and therefore you cannot lose it. There was one condition that had to be fulfilled to receive spirit and that was to believe in Jesus Christ. Once you believed, you were born of God and you received holy spirit. You didn’t receive it under any restriction and that’s why you cannot lose it. Moreover, holy spirit is what you received when you were born of God. As your flesh and blood are the tokens of your first birth so the spirit is the token of your second birth. The birth is birth. It is an unaltered fact. As you will continue to be a child of your earthly parents whatever may happen, so you will continue to be a son or a daughter of God. I Peter tells us: I Peter 1:23 "Having been born again, not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides for ever" Our new birth came as a result of believing what the Word of God says concerning Jesus Christ. It is therefore a birth "through the Word of God". Now, when you were born of God you received the spirit of God in you. That's the seed, the proof, that you are born again and this seed is incorruptible. If you could ruin it, it would be corruptible. If Satan or any other could ruin it, it would be corruptible. But it is INCORRUPTIBLE. So is it true to say that you have as much as Adam had before the fall? NO it isn’t true for you have more than Adam. Adam lost the spirit because he had it under restrictions. You cannot lose it because you have it without restrictions. Now you may think that in any case you cannot have as much as those great Old Testament prophets like Moses, Isaiah, David etc. had. Well, according to what we have read you do have much more than they. They had the spirit upon them, under restrictions and certainly they were no more than servants of God since new birth was not yet available. But you: Galatians 4:7 "you are no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ." So is it much more than Moses, Isaiah, David? Certainly yes. May you utilise to the full extend what God has made available for you in the new birth and walk the great walk that he has prepared for you.

Jesus and Prayers

Jesus and prayer How highly the Word of God esteems prayer is signified by the fact that it calls us to "pray without ceasing" (I Thessalonians 5:17), to "be sober and watchful in our prayers" (I Peter 4:7), to "[be] continuing steadfastly in prayer" (Romans 12:12), to be "vigilant in it with thanksgiving" (Colossians 4:2) etc. However, despite all these references of the Word of God that point out the significance of prayer, it is sometimes neglected or it is classified as an activity of lower priority. This article aims, through the presentation of the example of Jesus Christ, to make more evident the significance of prayer and at the same time to show that prayer has to be one of the top priorities of our life. 1. Luke 5:15-16 Starting this survey of some of the records in which we find Jesus Christ praying, we will go to Luke 5. In this record, as well as in those records that will follow, it is important to pay special attention to the context, since this will enable us to see the conditions under which Jesus Christ prayed and to receive valuable instruction. Thus, starting from verses 12-13, we are told about the healing of a man with leprosy. With this opportunity, verse 15 speaking generally tells us that though Jesus avoided the advertisement of his miracles "the report went around concerning him all the more; and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed of their infirmities" (Luke 5:15). From this passage, we can conclude that Jesus Christ was very busy with all these multitudes coming to him, and he was certainly much busier that many of us. Really, under such conditions, how many of us would have taken time to pray? But let's see what Jesus did: Luke 5:16 "BUT HE WITHDREW HIMSELF into the wilderness and PRAYED" When the word "but" occurs, it always contrasts what precedes it with what follows it. In our case, what precedes is the description of a very busy Jesus Christ. What follows it, tells us that despite the fact that he was very busy he withdraw himself into the wilderness and prayed. Though this is a very important statement and shows the significance that Jesus Christ gave to prayer, it does not carry all the beauty of the corresponding passage of the Greek text. In the Greek text the tense that is used is the imperfect that denotes that something was done repeatedly and consistently in the past in contrast to the simple past tense used by the above translations, which assumes that something was done in the past once in a specific time. Thus, the accurate translation of verses 15 and 16 is: Luke 5:15-16 "However, the report was going around concerning him all the more; and great multitudes were coming together to hear and to be healed by him of their infirmities. But he continued withdrawn himself and prayed." Therefore, what verses 15 and 16 describe is not something that happened only once in the life of Jesus Christ. Instead, what they tell us is that he ALWAYS was very busy, with multitudes that were coming to him, BUT he also ALWAYS used to take time to pray. In other words, prayer was a HABIT of Jesus Christ, something to which he gave top priority even when he was very busy. In turn, this shows the importance of prayer. This importance is so great that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, used to allocate special parts of his time to it and this happened even when he was busy in other godly activities. Moreover, it indicates that whether we will pray or not is not a matter of time but a matter of priorities. Jesus Christ had time to pray because HE DECIDED to make time to it. All of us in one way or another allocate our time to various activities. The question therefore is not whether we have time or not, for the day has the same time for all of us, as it also had for Jesus i.e. 24 hours. What has to be asked is what priority does prayer have in our daily time schedule? Is prayer one of our top priorities as it was for Jesus or is it something that we decide to do after we are done with other activities such as work, school, gardening, TV viewing, sleep etc.? Jesus' example as well as all the records of the Word of God that refer to prayer beseech us to make prayer A TOP PRIORITY OF OUR LIVES. Thus, instead of first allocating the time for all other activities and then, if some time remains, to devote it to prayer, it is better to FIRST set a time to pray and then organise your time for other activities. 2. Mark 1:35 Another very instructive record where we see Jesus Christ praying is given in Mark 1:35. Again, it is very important to have a look at the context of the record. Thus, starting from verse 21, we are told that Jesus taught in the synagogue of Capernaum where he also cast out a devil spirit (verses 23-27). As a result, "immediately his fame spread throughout all the region around Galilee" (verse 28). After he came out of the synagogue, he went to the house of Simon and Andrew where he healed Simon's mother in law (verses 30-31). Finally: Mark 1:32-34 "At evening, when the sun had set, they brought to him all who were sick and those who were demon-possessed, and the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew him." As in the previous record so here we have the description of another very busy day of Jesus. Moreover, since he was going to be in Galilee for the next day as well, and since his fame had spread throughout all this region, one would expect that the next day was going to be an equally busy day if not busier. This is exactly what happened as verses 36 and 37 referring to the next day tell us: Mark 1:36-37 "And Simon and those who were with him searched for him. When they found him they said to him. "EVERYONE IS LOOKING FOR YOU" Everyone was looking for him. This means that the day that had just started was going to be very busy. Really, having just finished a very busy day and knowing that the next day is going to be also very busy, how many of us would have got up earlier to pray? And if someone did it, would not that mean that he considered prayer to be extremely important and would not that mean that it was a top priority in his life? Well, let's see someone who made prayer his top priority. Who is he? Jesus Christ: Mark 1:35 "Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, he went out and departed to a solitary place; and there he PRAYED" Jesus knew that it was going to be a very busy day which probably would not leave him much time to pray. What did he do? He got up EARLIER to pray. Isn't that a wonderful beginning of a day? Isn't also a wonderful way to start your day, even a busy one? Instead of starting your day by thinking about its pressures and demands, you can start it by discussing these pressures and demands with your Father, and then, during the day, you will have the joy to see His delivering power answering your prayers and arranging the issues of the day for you. But in order to do that, you have to believe what the Word of God says about the importance of prayer and what God can do as a result of it, to the extent that you determine to get up in the morning to pray. Jesus did not get up because it just happened. Instead, HE determined to get up because HE recognized prayer's priority and importance for his life. Again therefore, it is a matter of priorities and not a matter of time. 3. Matthew 14:23 Another record in which we see Jesus Christ praying is given in the fourteenth chapter of Matthew. Again it is very important to have a look at the context. This time the day was not only busy but it also started very sadly for Jesus, since it was the day that he heard about the beheading of John the Baptist (see verses 1-11 for the beheading): Matthew 14:12 "Then his [John's] disciples came and took away the body and buried it, and went and told Jesus" Before we go ahead, how would you feel if you heard that your cousin, who also stood constantly and faithfully with you, was killed in such a horrible manner? I guess that you would probably feel very sad, and you would like to stay privately for a bit. That's what Jesus also wanted: Matthew 14:13 "When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place." His withdrawal to this solitary place privately was not something prearranged, for it happened "WHEN Jesus heard what had happened". Obviously, Jesus wanted to have some quiet time after the shock of this bad news. However, he did not stay there forever. Sometime later, he departed from this solitary place and he saw a great multitude waiting for him. When he saw this multitude, "he was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick" (verse 14). In fact, not only did he heal their sick but he also fed them miraculously (verses 15-21). Then, verse 22 tells us what happened after this feeding: Matthew 14:22 "And immediately Jesus CONSTRAINED his disciples to get into the ship, and to go before him to the other side, while he sent the multitudes away" The word "immediately" is connected with the feeding of the multitudes and it means that as soon as the multitudes were fed Jesus constrained his disciples to get into the ship. See this word "constrained". The corresponding Greek word is the past tense of the verb "anagkazo" that is used 9 times in the New Testament and means "to compel someone to do something though he may not want to". So, according to the above passage Jesus compelled his disciples to get into the ship. Probably they did not want to. But he did not discuss it. He constrained them to do it. Then, he sent the multitudes away. The question that we may ask now is why he compelled the disciples to leave? What did he plan to do after sending the multitudes away? The answer is in verse 23: Matthew 14:23 "And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up on the mountain by himself TO PRAY. Now when evening came, he was there alone" The reason that he did not allow the disciples to stay but constrained them to get into the ship and go was that he wanted to stay alone and PRAY. See how significant prayer was to Jesus Christ. He was willing to get up very early in the morning, to withdrew himself from the multitudes, to compel the disciples to go, in order to pray. Does not that indicate that prayer was a TOP priority in his life? It certainly does. May we appreciate these records and believe what the Word says about the importance of prayer so as to make it a top priority in our lives as well. 4. Luke 6:12-13 Another record in which we find Jesus Christ praying is in Luke 6. This time the focus is not on the fact that he made time to pray but on the subject of his prayer. Though the record does not specifically state this subject, it can be easily seen from the context: Luke 6:12-13 "Now it came to pass in those days that he went out to the mountain to pray, AND CONTINUED ALL NIGHT IN PRAYER TO GOD. And when it was day he called his disciples tohimself; and from them he chose twelve whom he also named apostles" He prayed ALL NIGHT. Though the Bible does not specifically say what he prayed for, it does say that in the morning he made one of the most crucial decisions of his ministry: the choice of the twelve. Most probably therefore, one of the central subjects of his prayer that night was this choice. The question now is: if Jesus needed to pray before he made decisions and choices, do you think that we do not need to pray before we make them? Really, why should WE make decisions using our little minds and five senses information and not go to GOD and ask Him to instruct us and show us what the best choice is? He knows the best choice, He is willing to show us this choice, and He has the means, His spirit in us, to announce it. The question therefore is not whether God is willing and able to help us, for He is. The real question is: do WE choose Him as our advisor and go to Him to ask Him through prayer? The same is also true for things pertaining to our service to God. We do not need to be confused about how to serve God and what to do for Him. We do not need to torture our little minds to make decisions about things that belong to HIM. He is the one that is responsible to tell us what to do and how to do it. Some of the these things are mentioned in the Bible. So the Bible tells you to love, to pray, to study to show yourself approved unto God etc. Thus, you do not need God to personally tell you to pray: He has already told you that in His Word. Similarly you do not need God to personally tell you to love: He has already told you that in His Word. However, you do need His personal instruction if for example you are thinking of going to such and such place to do some work for Him. In such a case, before you make up your mind, pray about it and see what God wants. He may wants you to go to somewhere else. He may want you to do something else. It is HIS business. Isn't it? 5. Matthew 26:36-44 After all the above, we will continue with another example that is given in the well known passage of Matthew 26:36-44. The things that we are going to see happened shortly before the arrest of Jesus Christ that finally resulted in his crucifixion. Starting from verse 36 we read: Matthew 26:36-38 "Then Jesus came with them [the disciples except Judas] to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, "Sit here while I go and PRAY over there" And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and he began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then he said to them "my soul is exceeding sorrowful even to death. Stay here and watch with me" The reason why Jesus Christ was very sorrowful and distressed was that he knew what was going to happen. Really, it was a very difficult time for him and at the same time a very crucial time for all of us since the plan of our salvation was based on his personal sacrifice and resurrection. But how did he decide to face this crisis? The verses that follow give us the answer: Matthew 26:39-44 "He went a little farther and fell on his face, AND PRAYED, saying, "O my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; NEVERTHELESS NOT AS I WILL, BUT AS YOUWILL. Then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "What? Could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Again, a second time, He went away and prayed saying, "O my Father, if this cup cannot pass away from me unless I drink it, YOUR WILL BE DONE." And he came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. So he left them, went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words." He was asking Father whether there was another way whereby he could accomplish man's salvation, without having to go through this ordeal situation. He prayed about it. In fact, he prayed three times. It is very instructive to pay attention to his prayer attitude. As we can see, he expressed his desire to God ("let this cup pass from me") BUT at the same time he asked for the will of God to be done ("NEVERTHELESS not as I will but as YOU will"). This is very important since sometimes we think that because we ask God for something He is obliged to do it and not only that but that He should do it when WE want it to be done. God is obliged to do whatever we ask only when what we ask is in accordance with His will.Now, for some things there are specific records in the Bible that show us whether something is His will or not. One such example is healing. The Word of God contains so many records about it (however even one would be enough to establish it as God's will) that make it more than clear that healing is the will of God. We can therefore claim that healing is already ours. We can pray trusting in this promise of God. We can be sure 100% that if we get sick and pray to God and trust in His promises, God will heal us. We know it because the Wordguarantees it. On the other hand, there are other things that being by nature specific for each person, are not covered by a respective specific promise in the Bible. For example, let's suppose that I want to have such and such a car. The Bible does not contain any promise that tells me whether it is God's will to have that car or not. Is it right therefore to claim that car as mine? Obviously not, except if God has specifically told me that it is going to be mine. Is it right to pray to God and tell Him my desire? Yes, yes, yes!!! Is it right to ask Him to show me whether it is good for me to have that car or not? Yes, yes, yes!!! Should I trust His Word that tells me that HIS WILL is "good, acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2) and that "He cares for us" (II Peter 2:7) and therefore submit my desires to His will, whatever this will is? Yes, yes, yes!!! This is what Jesus did. What he prayed for was not God's will and therefore could not be done. But see that though there was a desire "for the cup to pass away", he had AN EVEN BIGGER DESIRE for the will of God to be done. He said "Nevertheless not as I will but as YOU will". Isn't that again very instructive? Does not that tell us that apart from the various desires that we may have and bring into prayer, we should also have AN EVEN BIGGER DESIRE for the "good, acceptable and perfect" will of God to be done? Yes, yes, yes!! Returning to the example of Jesus Christ, though what he prayed for could not be done, this does not mean that God did not honour his prayer. The gospel of Luke adds some more details: Luke 22:41-43 "And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's throw, and he knelt down and prayed, saying, "Father, if it is your will, take this cup away from me; nevertheless not my will, but yours, be done" And an angel appeared to him from heaven, STRENGTHENING him." God sent an angel and strengthened him to do what was his BIGGEST desire: the will of God. Sometimes, we may discover that our personal desires are not in accordance with the "good, acceptable and perfect" will of God. If our BIGGEST DESIRE is to do the will of God, God will strengthen us to do it. In the case of Jesus Christ the strengthening that he received because he prayed is shown in the record of his arrest: John 18:3-11 "Then Judas, having received a detachment of men, and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons. Jesus therefore, knowing all things that would come upon him, went forward and said to them "Whom are you seeking?" They answered him, "Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus said to them, "I am he." And Judas, who betrayed him, also stood with them. Now when he said to them, "I am he", they drew back and fell to the ground. Then he asked them again, "Whom are you seeking?" And they said "Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus answered, "I have told you that I am he. Therefore, if you seek me, let these [meaning the disciples] go their way", that the saying might be fulfilled which he spoke, "Of those whom You gave me I have lost none." Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus. So Jesus said to Peter, "Put your sword into the sheath. SHALL I NOT DRINK THE CUP WHICH MY FATHER HAS GIVEN ME?" The last verse shows that the crisis was over. Though his will was different, his BIGGEST desire was to do the will of God. So he submitted his will to the will of God, just as me and you should do. But to do that, he prayed and he got strengthened. Apart from this, the strengthening is shown in his reaction to those who came to arrest him. Thus, although he went to the garden being exceeding sorrowful and deeply distressed his reaction as it is given in the above record is full of boldness. For indeed much boldness is needed to go and meet those who you know that are going to torture you later. A fearful person would have tried to escape from the situation. He would have shifted to others what it was supposed to be his responsibility. But Jesus was not afraid. Instead of trying to hide himself behind the others, he went forth and asked them whom they were seeking for. In fact, not only did he do that but he also took care of the security of his disciples. Moreover, he had the love and peace of mind to heal the servant's ear that Peter cut off (Luke 22:51). If all these do not show a fully strengthened man what then do they show? But how did he get strengthened? How did he overcome the crisis? BY PRAYER. 6. Conclusion After all the above, and though there are more records that you can study for yourself, it is clear that prayer was a very important issue in the life of Jesus Christ, a part that he kept with great care. For prayer's sake, he was ready to get up early in the morning, to compel his disciples to go, to withdrew himself from the multitudes. By prayer, he made decisions and he overcame difficult situations. In contrast with the general idea that says "pray if you have time" HE MADE TIME to pray. Instead of the world's way of thinking that says: "choose what YOU think is best and do what YOU will" he prayed to see what GOD thought as best and did what GOD willed. To close, let's go to Philippians 4:6-7 and let's make it our way of thinking: Philippians 4:6-7 "Be anxious for nothing, but IN EVERYTHING by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus"

Church or Ecclesia

Church (ecclesia) and her head The head is the part that directs the whole body. We recognize this in other settings too. Thus the director of my department at work is called the head of the department. Or we speak for the head of the family, the head of the state etc. What we mean with the term “head” in these expressions is that part, that person, that is responsible to give directions and to make decisions at work, the family, the state etc. There is no direction if there is no head or if those who are under the head, do not obey to what the head says. The Bible, the written Word of God, tells us that we are members of the body of Jesus Christ, the church, the Ecclesia. With the term ecclesia or church I don’t mean here – nor the Bible means - buildings or other human constructions but the sum of those who believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and God has raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:9). Everybody that believes this is automatically member of the family of God, of the body of Christ, the church, the Ecclesia. The Bible also tells us who is the head, the director of this body. This is no other than the Son of God Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s see this: Ephesians 1:22 “And He [God, the Father of glory, (verse 15)] put all things under His [Jesus Christ’s] feet, and gave Him to be head over ALL THINGSto the church” Ephesians 4:15-16  “but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head––Christ–– from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” Ephesians 5:23  “Christ is head of the church ;” Colossians 1:17-18  “And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He [Christ] is the head of the body, the church..” And here are also some passages that make clear that we, the believers in the Son of God, are members of the body, whose Head is the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 12:4-5  “For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. ” 1 Corinthians 12:12-27  “For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ….. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body––whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free––and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body," is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body," is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeedthere are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you"; nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer withit; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.” Ephesians 5:30  “For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.” In these pages of New Testament Scripture, three questions are given crystal clear answers: i. Body of Christ: is it one or many? There is ONE and only ONE body of Christ. Ecclesia is the body of Christ and is ONE. I’m speaking here about the universal Church of Christ and not about the local church in the individual cities. Without wanting to make a digression, in each local city there is in the Scripture ONE and only ONE church in the city. It was the church in Corinth. It was the church in Collosai, the church in Jerusalem etc. There is nothing in the Scripture to support what we have today: many churches, with no relationships to each other, all in the same city. Also completely unknown to the Scripture is the concept of denominations. There is no Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Orthodox, Catholic or any other denomination in the Scripture. What there is in the Scripture is one simple thing: just Christians. “And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians” (Acts 11:26). To sum it up: what you see in the Scripture is ONE body that includes everyone that believes that Jesus Christ is Lord and God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:9). What you also see is one Head of this body, the Son of God Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. ii. We in the body of Christ: is there a top-down hierarchical relationship between believers? What is also made clear from the above given New Testament passages is the fact that we are members of the body of Christ and members of each other. The relationship therefore with each other is not a hierarchical one, exactly as the relationship of our members in our own body is not a hierarchical one. The foot does not say I’m in a greater position than the hand but still need to catch up with the ear. The foot is happy to be foot, because that’s what God made it to be and placed it in the body to be. It is also happy that there is a hand to do what a hand is supposed to do. Foot and hand are both members of the same body and are therefore connected to each other. The hand cannot live alone, outside the body. It has life and function only within the body. So is with the members of the body of Christ, the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. They do not relate to each other via a top-down hierarchy where the X believer is in higher place in the hierarchy than the Y believer but still needs to catch up with the Z believer. There is also no competition in the body. Everybody who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His resurrection has been placed by God Himself into the body of Christ with a specific function. And all members of the body are valuable. As Paul said above: “much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary.” iii. Head of the body: who is the head, the leader, of the church? Lastly, and this we have noticed right from the beginning of this article, it is clear that the Scripture recognizes one and only one as Head of this body. This is no other than the Son of God Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Head, the director of the church, the top one. He directs the church, His body, and it is Him therefore to whom the body should look up for instruction and direction. Conclusion This is a very short article and though it still needs a lot of completion, I don’t think we need a book to lay out some basic truths found in the Scripture about the church. We all too often prefer to rely on a human hierarchy to decide for us. We are all too often waiting in the sidelines for somebody else, a “professional”, to do what we are supposed to do or to tell us what we are supposed to do. We are looking and searching for mortal church CEOs that will take each individual and tell him what he is supposed to do like head of the departments do in our business world. Our business world with its practices is all too often copied into the church. We need however to notice one thing. The Scripture says that God gave Christ to be “head over ALL THINGS to the church”. See this “OVER ALL THINGS”. Now guess what ? Over all things means OVER ALL THINGS. There is nothing left out from this “over all”! Christ and not a mortal man – however well intentioned he may be - is the boss, the master, the CEO, the “over all” in the church. See also that the body grows as “every part does its share”. EVERY PART! Again, guess what? “Every part” means EVERY PART. There are no exceptions here. There is nothing in the Bible that suggests that one part does everything and the other parts do nothing. All of us have to go to the Lord and ask Him, as the Head, the manager of this organism called the church: “Lord what do you want me to do? You are the head. Direct me as you want, where you want”. Let us stop look out for mortal men to get directions. The directions can only come from the head and the head is one: CHRIST! To Him let us turn for directions and Him let us seek! Matthew 7:8 “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”  

Body, Soul, and Spirit

Body, soul and spirit Is it a man just body and soul or is he body, soul and spirit? This I believe is one of the most fundamental questions that somebody needs to have correctly answered. I consider the subject of body, soul and spirit as one of the most important subjects dealt within this magazine. Therefore I would like to ask you to please pay close attention as we go through the Word to find the answer not only to the matter of body soul and spirit but also to some other equally important questions related to it. 1. Body, soul, spirit: what died in the day Adam and Eve sinned? To start approaching the topic of body soul and spirit we need to go to the first book of the Bible, the Genesis. There, after God made man, He imposed a restriction on him, making also clear the penalty, for the case that this restriction was violated: Genesis 2:16-17  "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die". The restriction that God imposed on Adam was that he should not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The penalty for the case that this restriction was violated was that: "in the day [pay attention: that very day] that you eat of it you shall surely die". Two very significant things have to be noted in that penalty. The first is that if Adam ate from the tree death would happen immediately, in that very day. The second is that this would happen surely. The phrase "you shall SURELY die" has exactly the purpose to put emphasis on the fact that death would happen 100%, surely, in that day. Now from Genesis 3:1-6 we all know how Satan deceived Adam and Eve to violate the only restriction God had imposed on them, and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After eating from that tree and according to what God had told them in Genesis 2:17, they should have died at that moment. The problem here is that Genesis 5:5-6 says about Adam: "After he [Adam] begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters. So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died." Therefore, according to the Bible, Adam continued to have life in his body for many years after he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. On the other hand, God had said that if he would eat from that tree he would surely, 100%, die, in that same day. So what really happen in the day that Adam and Eve ate from that tree. Did they die as God said, or they did not die? Who will solve us this "problem"? Man's ideas, theories, religion and tradition? No! Only one can give us answers, and this is no other than the Word of God. And if you want this Word to give you answers, you have to leave it to speak for itself (self interpretation). In our case, since God cannot lie (Numbers 23:19) in the day that Adam and Eve ate from that tree they really died. Actually, it was the Devil that said, when he deceived Eve, "you shall not surely die". Thus, if they did not die that day, as God said, then Satan was right and God was wrong, which is simply impossible. However, that's exactly what many teach today when they say "actually when God said that they would surely die He meant that just the sperm of death would be planted". The Word of God does not need such kind of defense. Actually it does not need any defense at all for it is truth and truth can stand by itself. Returning to our topic: SINCE GOD SAID THAT THEY WOULD SURELY DIE THAT VERY DAY, THEY INDEED DIED THAT DAY. However, since they continued to have life in their bodies even after they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it is self-evident that they must have had another form of life, in addition to the life of their bodies, that was lost in the day that they ate and for this reason it was death (absence of a form of life). So, we have to search the Scriptures to see how man was created and what were the parts of his being. Knowledge of what composed the life of the first man will also enable us to see what was lost in that day. 2. Body, soul and spirit: the body and soul parts. Starting our research on how the first man was created, let's go to Genesis 2:7. There it says: "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground........" Which part of man did God form of the dust of the ground? His body. That's why the elements of the human body can be found in the ground. So one part of the first human being was the body. But let's continue: Genesis 2:7  "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul [soul = nephesh in Hebrew]" We saw that God formed man's body of the dust of the ground. However, this body did not have life. It was just formed, without life. Then, the Word of God tells us that God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul". Therefore, what is soul? Soul is what gives life to the body. The fact that people do not understand the simple truths of the Word of God described at that point has caused no end of confusion. Here the Word of God tells us that soul is what gives life to the body. Without soul the body is dead. Where is the soul, the life of the body, the life of the flesh? The Word of God again is very precise: Leviticus 17:11, 13-14  "For the life [nephesh in Hebrew] of the flesh is in the blood.....Whatever man of the children of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you, who hunts and catches any animal or bird that may be eaten, he shall pour out its blood, and cover it with dust; For it [i.e. the blood] is the life [nephesh] of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life [nephesh] of it: therefore I said to the children of Israel "You shall not eat the blood of any flesh: for the life [nephesh] of all flesh is its blood" We saw in Genesis 2:7 that soul (nephesh in Hebrew) is what gives life to the body. Here in Leviticus we see that "the life of the flesh is in the blood". In the above passage the word “life” is a translation of the Hebrew word "nephesh" that is translated as “soul” in Genesis 2:7 as well as in 471 out of the 753 of the places where it occurs. Therefore, what is “nephesh” or soul? According to Genesis 2:7 soul is what gives life to the body. Where is the “nephesh”, the life of the body, the soul? According to Leviticus 17:11-14 it is in the blood: "For the life (nephesh, soul) of the flesh is in the blood". How this soul life passes from generation to generation? Through the blood. That's why Acts 17:26 says: "And He has made from ONE BLOOD every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth". The "one blood" of this passage is the blood of Adam which passes from generation to generation and actually is the blood that all of us have. Actually, soul is not something that only man has. Animals have also soul which again is in the blood. Although this is immediately understood from the above passage of Leviticus, where we are told that the life of all flesh is in the blood let's go to Genesis 1:20-21, 29-30 to see it there as well: Genesis 1:20-21  "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature [nephesh, soul] that has life [nephesh, soul] and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature [nephesh, soul] that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good" Genesis 1:29-30  "And God said "Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yield seed; to you it shall be for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps upon the earth, wherein there is a living soul [nephesh in Hebrew] I have given every green herb for meat:" and it was so." Therefore, not only man but also the animals have "nephesh" i.e. "soul". This is not strange at all, if we understand that soul is what gives life to the body. When you die there is no more life, no more soul. The same happens with the animals. Soul is for them the same that is for man i.e. what gives life to the body. Although, there is no problem about what is defined as soul in the Bible, the problem is created when we go to the Bible with the preconceived idea that soul is immortal. If soul was immortal, then really the souls of the various animals would also be immortal, since they have "nephesh" as man has "nephesh". Soul is not something immortal. It just gives life to the body. When you stop having life in your body, you have no more soul. By now, we have seen that the Bible teaches that God formed the body of man of the dust of the ground, and that He gave to that body life i.e. soul. The same is also true for the animals. They also have body and soul. Every man in the world, believer or unbeliever, has body and soul. It can therefore be concluded that since Adam died 930 years old, when he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he obviously lost neither his body nor his soul. Thus, since something had to die for Adam that day, he must originally have had at least one more part, which was lost, died, when he ate. So, let's continue searching the Scriptures to see what they say about that. 3. Body, soul and spirit: the spirit part. To continue our enquiry let's go to Genesis 1:26-27. There it says: Genesis 1:26-27  "Then God said "let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.... So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them" According to this passage, God created man "in His own image". Here is a very critical point, a key point, if we want to understand not only what happened in the day that Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but also other passages of the Bible that are affected by what is said here. Reading the above passage, the question that has to be asked is what is the image of God? What does He look like? John 4:24 tells us: "God is Spirit" God is not flesh but Spirit. That is His image. Therefore, when the Word of God tells us that God created man according to His image, it means that in addition to body and soul man also had that which is the image of God i.e. spirit. In order to understand better the usage of the phrase "in his image" in the above critical passage, let's see another place where this phrase occurs. Genesis 5:1-3  "This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, In the likeness of God made He him; Male and female created He them ; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth" This passage says that Adam begat a son "in his own likeness, after his image". What does it mean? It means that as Adam was, so his son was i.e. as Adam had hands so Seth had hands. As Adam had feet so Seth had feet etc. As Adam was body and soul so Seth was body and soul. Similarly, when the Word says that God created man "in his image", "in the likeness of God", what it means is that as God is, so Adam was. God is not flesh. He does not have feet, hands, head. He is spirit. So as God is spirit so Adam had spirit. One could ask, why did God make Adam apart from body and soul, spirit as well? The simple reason is that without spirit Adam could not communicate with God Who is spirit. God being spirit, cannot communicate with the body and soul. They are different things. You see, you cannot receive the messages of a radio station unless you have a radio receiver. You may have a washing machine. But the fact that you have a washing machine does not make it possible for you to receive the messages of the radio station. You need a radio receiver. Similarly, God is spirit and to communicate with Him you must have spirit. Body and soul are enough for things of the five senses. But when it comes to the things of God, what you need is spirit. This truth is also explained in I Corinthians 2:14: "But the natural [psuchikos in the Greek] man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him: nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." In this passage, the word translated "natural" is the Greek adjective "psuchikos", which comes from the noun "psuchi" which means soul. So, psuchikos means "a soul man" i.e. a man with body and soul only1. According to that passage a man who is only body and soul "does not receive the things of the Spirit of God". As it was said above to receive "the things of the spirit of God", to communicate with God you need the appropriate receiver i.e. spirit. That's why the passage says: "nor can he (the man of body and soul) know them because they are spiritually discerned". The man of body and soul is impossible to know the things of God for the simple reason that such things have to do with the spirit, "they are spiritually discerned", and since he lacks spirit he cannot know them. Summarizing all the above, Adam had body, formed from the dust of the ground, soul that gives life to the body and spirit to communicate with God. He was body, soul and spirit. Having established that, there is no question about what happened in the day that Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God had told them that in the day that they would eat from it, they would surely die. Bearing in mind that death means the absence of a form of life, we can now see what died that day. Adam was body, soul and spirit and his body died many years after the day that he ate. Now since without soul a body has no life, Adam had body and soul even after he ate from that tree. On the other hand, since God is always right in what He says, something had to die that day. Since Adam was body, soul and spirit before he ate and since, as we saw, he continued to have body and soul after he ate what was lost for him that day, was the spirit that God gave him. He continued to have body and soul but he did not have spirit. The spirit departed from him and this was death for him since spirit, a form of life that he had before he ate, was no more there. You see, how clearly the Bible settles the things when you leave it to interpret itself. It was actually this loss of the spirit that was restored in the day of Pentecost where holy spirit was made available, so that today after believing in Jesus Christ you are again body, soul and spirit. That’s why then Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says: “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We now, after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and His resurrection and receiving the gift of the holy spirit, we are no longer just body and soul but body, soul and spirit.