The following text is recovered from the Wayback Machine.  Original link:  https://christiancommunitychurcharklow.hdpm.org/every-believers-calling-the-ministry-of-reconciliation/

Every Believer’s Calling, The Ministry of Reconciliation

by Solomon Aroboto | 22 .06. 04 | 2013 Daily Devotionals, Daily Devotional, Resources

2 Corinthians 5:18 –20 – Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the Word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.

Friend, apart from the fivefold ministry of the apostles, prophets, pastors, evangelists and teachers, there is a ministry that every believer is called into; that is the ministry of reconciliation. We are saved to be saviours. God has given us all the assignment to reconcile the world back to Him. Most people think that God is mad at them but this is not the case. A lot of people think that God is keeping record of their sins and that He is waiting for an appropriate time to punish and destroy them. In some cases, people got the message of the Kingdom on a platter of condemnation and judgment of an angry God. While I am not saying that God loves sin or that we should tolerate sin, I am saying that God loves the sinner but hates his sin because sin causes a separation between the sinner and God. Therefore, He made a remedy by erasing sin and put the punishment we deserved onto His son and procured total salvation for all of us. Glory to God!

Our ministry is to go out and tell this story to people, to paint the right picture of God on the canvas of people’s soul. God is not the one that left man; it was man that left God. God did not break up His relationship with man; it was man that broke his relationship with God. This ‘enmity’ between man and God is one-sided. Man chose to become the enemy of God but God remained faithful and found a way to reconnect with man. It is therefore, every believer’s ministry to reconcile people back to God by telling them that God is not mad at them and that He is not holding their sins against them. We are to make them see the provision of salvation set on the platter of mercy and grace and not on the platter of judgement and condemnation.

This is the reason why we are called the light and salt of the earth. We are to give the world divine guidance and stop the decay that is in it. The reason why God left us on the earth after our salvation is so that we can spread the good news and help as many people as possible to enter into this great and new life that God has provided for them. A major purpose of our salvation would be defeated if we don’t impact our world with the message of Christ. While we are not of this world, we are sent into the world to make disciples. Therefore, let’s get going about our Father’s business; let’s enter into our role as peacemakers between the world and God.

For Further Study

John 3:16-17, Romans 6:23

Personal declaration for the day

As I am a minister of reconciliation, today, I will be a good steward of God’s good news to everyone I meet.

Questions for you to reflect on

Are you aware that you have the ministry of reconciliation?

Are you aware that the ministry of reconciliation is for all believers and that there are no exceptions?

When do you intend to answer the call of God?

Finding The Lord

And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13 KJV)

But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. (Deuteronomy 4:29 KJV)

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." (Matthew 7:13-14 NKJV)

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field." (Matthew 13:44 KJV)

Luke 15:6-7 “And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’  Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”

Ephesians 2:1-2 “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”

Luke 15:31-32 “And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.  It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’”

Luke 15:9-10 “And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Luke 15:4-5 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.”

Jesus is The Lord!

The Unbiblical Myth of “Full Time Ministry”

The following text is recovered from Wayback Machine ...

Original source:  https://togetherforisrael.org/the-unbiblical-myth-of-full-time-ministry/

I want to put a challenge before you – are you ready? Okay, here we go! Pull out your Strong’s Concordance and look up the term ‘full time ministry’. I’m willing to award a prize to the one who finds the most references. As a matter of fact, I’ll gladly give an expensive gift to anyone who can produce one instance where that exact terminology is used anywhere in the original languages!

Let me save you some time. There is not one person in the entire Bible that is referred to as being in full time ministry! Isn’t it amazing how frequently we hear the phrase ‘full-time ministry’ and it’s not even found once in the Word of God? Perhaps we need to ask the Lord for a more Biblical paradigm.

Imagine the following scenario: There are two 30-year-old men standing in front of you. One of them is serving in a third world country and has diligently raised support so that he and his family could serve as missionaries for the next five years. The other man is a fireman in a city that is growing. This man is committed to being a Godly husband to his wife and father to his children. The amount of money that he makes is irrelevant to him as long as he keeps the Lord first in his life and is a witness for Jesus every moment of the day.

With the above scenario in mind, it’s unfortunate, according to the way many of us look at things, that the man in the third world country is considered in ‘full-time ministry’ whereas the fireman would be considered working a ‘secular job’ (by the way, the term ‘secular job’ isn’t found in the Bible either!).

Although this may sound a little confrontational and may ruffle some feathers, I believe that the term ‘full time ministry’ needs to be entirely eradicated from our vocabulary due to the unbiblical connotation that it portrays! Because it’s Jesus that has commissioned us, we are all called to be His witnesses whether we serve as a pastor or a plumber. The Lord doesn’t look down from heaven and recognize us by whether we’re in full-time ministry or not! We’re all His children and called to serve Him!

I’m continually grieved when I run into people who have given into the whisper of the enemy, who has convinced them that they’re not living up to their potential because they are settling for working a job that this age considers secular. There is a whole group of people who are reading this right now who feel like failures because they graduated from a Bible college or a school of ministry and are not employed by a ‘church’ or ‘ministry’.

Think of Moses for a moment…was he ever employed by a church or ministry? He lived within the confines of Godless Pharaoh’s house for the first 40 years of his life and then worked his tail off as a shepherd on the back side of the desert for the next 40 years. He was never written up in a magazine for his potential as one of the up-and-coming history makers of his generation. How sad it is that if he were alive today, many of our modern-day leaders would pay no attention to him because he wasn’t ‘in the ministry’. As a matter of fact, depending on where he went to church, he might even be rebuked for wasting the best years of his life!

Just this morning I was on the phone with a graduate from a ministry school who really felt that the Lord would one day have his family serving as missionaries in a foreign country. So, he quit his job (which, by the way, was a great source of income for his growing family) and prepared to make the next step toward the mission field. I listened intently as he shared with me that it seemed like the Lord was calling him back to his previous job because the time was not yet right to move overseas.

At this point, some of you might say, “Well, he just needs to step out in faith and do it because God’s word says, ‘Go!’” Although there is great truth in that statement, there is yet an underlying truth that requires us to not abort the preparation process so that when we do go, we are not going with our own power, but rather in the power of the One who has commissioned us.

It’s amazing to me that Jesus Himself, the Son of God, didn’t launch into His ultimate calling until He was thirty years of age! Looking at that from a worldly kind of wisdom, you might say that some of those youthful years could have been better spent seeing the dead raised and the blind eyes opened. After all, He would have gotten a tremendous head start on a ‘successful ministry’ if He began earlier.

Amazingly, when the Lord trumpeted from heaven that “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”, Jesus had not yet done anything that modern-day Christianity would refer to as ‘ministry’. God was pleased with His Son simply because He was a Son. That, my friends, is a truth that we must all embrace!

The value of our lives to our Creator is not based on what we do but rather on who we are! I want to encourage all of you that Father God loves you not for what you can produce for Him but simply because you are His son and daughter. Our ultimate eternal destiny on this earth is to glorify the Lord by being a demonstration of the Kingdom of God. That must take place as we preach, as we wait on tables, as we drive a taxi cab, as we teach kindergarten, as we practice law, as we counsel, as we mow lawns, as we break bread together, as we fish, as we fight fires, as we sell real estate, as we flip hamburgers, as we raise our children, as we…

I think you’re getting the picture. Be a demonstration of the Kingdom of God wherever it is that He has you serving. And, if you have yet to see His promises for your life fulfilled, keep hanging on to those things which He has spoken, remembering that “faithful is He who calls you, He will also bring it to pass”!

Complete Sayings of Jesus in Chronological Order

Pride

This is one of the natures of Satan that we wrestle with (Ephesians 6:12).

Believer in Christ:  You are NOT pride.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My name is Pride. I am a cheater.

  

I cheat you of your God-given destiny…

because you demand your own way.

  

I cheat you of contentment…

because you “deserve better than this.”

I cheat you of knowledge…

because you already know it all.

I cheat you of healing…

because you are too full of you to forgive.

I cheat you of holiness…

because you refuse to admit when you are wrong.

I cheat you of vision…

because you’d rather look in the mirror than out a window.

I cheat you of genuine friendship…

because nobody’s going to know the real you.

I cheat you of love…

because real romance demands sacrifice.

I cheat you of greatness in heaven…

because you refuse to wash another’s feet on earth.

I cheat you of God’s glory…

because I convinced you to seek your own.

My name is Pride. I am a cheater.

You like me because you think I’m always looking out for you.

Untrue.

I’m looking to make a fool of you.

God has so much for you, I admit, but don’t worry…

If you stick with me you’ll never know.

<From Praying God’s Word: Breaking Free From Spiritual Strongholds by Beth Moore>

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I command for pride to depart from me, my family and our home and pray that God will fill that empty space with His holy spirit and humble me to my knees so that I can be a servant after God’s own heart.  Amen.

SOURCE:  The Princess Diaries Blog

INFORMATIONAL: What is "Pure Religion and Pure Secularism?"

In response to this article...

It sometimes helps to know the antonym of something in order to grasp the definition.  To be "purely secular" would be to be entirely opposite of "purely religious."

The following is the definition of "pure religion" according to the Christian Bible (the foundation of the Christian faith).

"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."  (James 1:27 KJV)

So, according to the Christian faith, the definition of pure secularism (the opposite of pure religion) would be something like this:  "Pure secularism and completely defiled before God and the Father is this, To never visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to become completely spotted from the world [to fully indulge in every possible sinful practice of the world - adultery, fornication, murder, theft, abuse, rebellion, etc...]."

According to the Christian faith, the only way to become right with God is to receive Jesus Christ and to become born again.  Reference The Book of John - Chapters 1 through 3.

I hope this helps.  I wish you ALL THE BEST!

What Various People Have Written About False Conversions In The Church

Four Characteristics of a False Convert | The Cripplegate

True and False Conversion | Living Waters

How can I detect a false conversion? - Got Questions?

False Conversions: The #1 Epidemic in the Modern Church

False Repentance Leads to False Conversions - The Gospel Coalition

FALSE CONVERSION - Bible Research

8 Reasons Why Most Churches Don't Break the 200 Attendance Mark by Carey Nieuwhof - ChurchLeaders.com - Christian Leadership Blogs, Articles, Videos, How To's, and Free Resources

8 Reasons Why Most Churches Don't Break the 200 Attendance Mark by Carey Nieuwhof - ChurchLeaders.com - Christian Leadership Blogs, Articles, Videos, How To's, and Free Resources

Just In Case You Didn't Know, This Thing Exists And It's Insane... - The Meta Picture

Just In Case You Didn't Know, This Thing Exists And It's Insane... - The Meta Picture

The True Nature Of God - Article - Andrew Wommack Ministries

The True Nature Of God - Article - Andrew Wommack Ministries

▶ How the Global Warming Scare Began - YouTube

▶ How the Global Warming Scare Began - YouTube

Fasting for three days can regenerate entire immune system, study finds - Telegraph

Fasting for three days can regenerate entire immune system, study finds - Telegraph

Women Rising | Rogue Theologian

Women Rising | Rogue Theologian



5. Gilbert Bilezikian, Th.D. Beyond Sex Roles: What the Bible Says About a Woman’s Place in Church and Family. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1985. ISBN: 0-8010-0885-9.


On page 248, Bilezikian writes, “It is worth noting that in 1
Corinthians more than in any of his other Epistles, Paul uses the é
particle to introduce rebuttals to statements preceding it. As a
conjunction, é appears in Paul’s Epistles in a variety of uses. But the
list below points to a predilection for a particular use of é, which is
characteristic mainly of 1 Corinthians. “The verses he listed I also
list below, in the order they appear, with a notation indicating the
appearance of the é particle, in each case translating it as “Nonsense!”
as Bilezikian did to indicate its flavor: 1 Cor. 6:1-2–”If any of you
has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for
judgment instead of before the saints? (é Nonsense!) Do you not know
that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world,
are you not competent to judge trivial cases?”


The e of which he speaks is the Greek letter “eta,” which looks like h


This device is called the “rhetorical eta,” many of my Greek
professors confirmed its use. Paul uses this device many times in 1
Corinthians. Its importance here is that it clearly marks a refutation
of the previous passage. That is what the rhetorical ate is for, it
indicates that what precedes it immediately is being refuted. Since the
Greeks did not have quotation marks, this device serves as quotation
marks and shows the injunction against women speaking was actually the
statement of the Corinthians to Paul. Apparently some faction in the
church, perhaps Judaizers, or some group the Corinthians has been in
contact with, had said this to them.

We can see this clearly in English, if we know what to look for. The
verse states: (35)”If there is anything they desire to know, let them
ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in
church.”


(36) What! Did the word of God originate with you, or are you the only ones it has reached?”

Clearly that sounds like a reversal of what has been said. One can get a
sense of the refutation of the previous remark, after all, those who
want to allow women to speak are not demanding that mean be silent. Why
would they seem to come across, as thinking that they were the only
one’s to hear from God? That idea makes much more sense if they wanted
to silence someone. It makes more sense in speaking to the silencers,
because they are acting like they are the only ones to receive the word
of God.

Those sky-blue italicized words, “what” and “or” represent where
the h comes. There are two of them, grammatically two of them should
make it say “what, or” but they can also function as rhetorical and that
fits the sense of the passage much better. Otherwise it sounds like
nonsense, with Paul railing against those he supports! So the etas are
here:

h “did the word of God come only to you? h are you the only one’s it has reached?” This signals the refutation of the previous idea, the silencing of women.

Healing Rooms - About Healing Rooms

Healing Rooms - About Healing Rooms

Healing Rooms - Birth of Healing Rooms

Healing Rooms - Birth of Healing Rooms

How to make your own giant bubbles - bubble recipe

How to make your own giant bubbles - bubble recipe

Could you clarify when women may speak in church?

Could you clarify when women may speak in church?

Have all people sinned or not? | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

 by Matt Slick



Romans 3:23; Romans 3:10; Psalm 14:3 and Job 1:1; Genesis 7:1; Luke 1:6

1. All have sinned
   1. (Romans 3:9-10)--"What
      then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already
      charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; 10as it is
      written, "There is none righteous, not even one."
   2. (Romans 3:23)--"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
   3. (Psalm 14:3)--"They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one."
   4.  
2. All have not sinned
   1. (Job 1:1)--"There
      was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job, and that man was
      blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil."
   2. (Genesis 7:1)--"Then
      the Lord said to Noah, "Enter the ark, you and all your household;
      for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time."
   3. (Luke 1:5-6)--"In
      the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a certain priest named
      Zacharias, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife from the
      daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6And they were both
      righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the
      commandments and requirements of the Lord."

The Bible clearly teaches that all people have sinned--except Jesus (1 Peter 2:22). Romans 3:23
clearly condemns all under sin. But when it mentions people like Job,
Noah, Zacharias, and Elizabeth as people who were "blameless" and
"righteous," it is not saying that they are not sinners. It is saying
that they were godly people, who kept the commandments of God; and in
that sense, they were righteous. But of course, we realize that no one
can keep the commandments of God perfectly which is why all people are
deserving of damnation (Eph. 2:3), and why we need a savior. If righteousness can come through the Law, then Christ died needlessly (Gal. 2:21).



Have all people sinned or not? | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

God does not want YOUR fruit!

Source article by Phil Drysdale

God is not interested in your fruit. He wants His fruit to be made manifest through you. Our calling as believers is not to produce fruit but rather to be branches which simply bear His fruit.

The fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-24)

To illustrate what I’m talking about let’s look at the best fruit we can have in our lives. The fruit of the Spirit.

So often I get so wrapped up in trying to produce these wonderful fruits that I forget that they are not my fruits to produce. They are the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit I produce ends up being a cheap counterfeit. So surely it would just be a better idea to let the Spirit produce fruit in us rather than working hard to produce what ends up being a substandard produce anyway.

Below I’ve gone through the fruits and described what I have experienced in both allowing the Spirit to produce the fruit in me and trying to produce the fruit myself.

Love

Spirit	Me
Overwhelming love and affection for someone bursting forth from inside – never influenced by their actions or circumstances but rather solely based on who the Spirit is and the Father heart of God.	An attempt to show affection and love for someone based on my own effort. Strongly influenced by how they perform around me or how I am feeling that day.

  Joy

Spirit	Me
Joy unspeakable that cannot be contained. It is not influenced by situations – death, depression, sickness, persecution, losing your job – all these things have no say in this joy which is rooted in Heaven.	An attempt to plaster a smile on every situation. When times are good it might even look and feel like the real thing but when times get hard it’s all too easy for people to see the hypocrisy – the smile is from ear to ear but behind closed doors there are tears and uncertainty.

  Peace

Spirit	Me
A peace that transcends understanding. This peace doesn’t care about the storms of life because it doesn’t take it’s report from Earth but rather from Heaven. This peace is not tethered in what man says but rather in what God has to say.	An attempt to find peace in every situation. On the outside it looks like you don’t panic that much, but on the inside there are constant nagging questions. It focuses on us and our ability to understand rather than leaning on God and His understanding.

  Patience

Spirit	Me
A confidence that God has said what He has said and it will happen. A knowledge that things are happening in the spiritual realm even if they don’t appear to be happening in the natural yet. It is a patience that doesn’t look at the surrounding circumstances but rather rests in God’s word. It waits in perfect peace.	An attempt to not get too impatient and if possible actually show patience on the outside. To many people it looks like patience but on the inside there are frustrations and a lack of peace. We may even end up getting angry and upset with God for not doing His part while we wait so “patiently”. It focuses on how long you can wait, not how well you do the waiting.

  Kindness

Spirit	Me
A relentlessly kind disposition to all people, not choosing to be kind to people based on if they will be kind in return, or if they have been kind to begin with. Rather choosing to be kind because you have been made kind, kindness is in your nature.	A deep down knowledge that we are supposed to be kind to everyone. This can be pretty easy to express towards those we love or who we may get something in return from but to everyone else it sure is hard work. Usually when we do manage to be kind it is met with one of two emotions, guilt for knowing we didn’t really want to, or pride and self-righteousness, thinking about how kind we are.

  Goodness

Spirit

Me

A general posture of good. We are good and produce good easily. We believe all things work together for the good of those who love God and that we are an active part of that. Everything we do produces good in our lives and the lives of those around us. Goodness follows us.

An attempt to do more good than bad. It’s a constant burden of knowing what is right and desperately trying to always do it. We very often manage to do it (making us proud) and yet more often fail to reach the high standards of “good”. We also know exactly what we shouldn’t do and try with all our might not to do those things… of course, we fail at that leaving us feeling guilty and full of condemnation.

  Faithfulness

Spirit	Me
A confidence in the goodness of God, other people, ourselves and an expectation of good in our circumstances. This allows us to see everything through God’s lenses and powerfully walk in the grace that Christ has given us. Faith is a gift and so even this faithfulness is simply a resounding “OK” to the rhema word of God in our lives.	An attempt to rustle up faith in God and to believe in something enough to change things. It always has the nagging doubt in the back of our heads “do I have enough faith?” and when we do see results leaves us feeling self-righteous about our ability to have faith. It’s utterly self-focused and not focused on the giver of faith, Jesus Christ.

  Gentleness

Spirit	Me
A natural disposition to think of others first and ourselves second. We are consumed with the thought of others and their wellbeing. We are other-focused in our thoughts and actions. People who have been around us feel encouraged, edified and equipped to be better people.	An attempt to be as gentle as possible. Desiring to care for people, however, ultimately failing to do so and succumbing to selfishness. It attempts to show people that you love them more than yourself but while the fruit might be there sometimes you know yourself the truth is that you love yourself more. While you are gentle more often than not, there is still definitely the “not” in your life.

  Self-control

Spirit

Me

Because we are fully aware of our union with God we don’t find ourselves thinking of the 101 different things we shouldn’t do. The Holy Spirit doesn’t produce bad fruit and so we aren’t worried about that. Rather we are free to enjoy ourselves in Him and watch as the “flesh” gradually becomes a non-existent issue the less we think of it. Why would we worry about doing bad when God is so preoccupied with doing good through us.

We are consumed with what is right and wrong. We must consistently focus on every possible sin that we might commit and how we might avoid doing that. We of course then absolutely fail to do so like Paul explains in Romans 7 and 1 Cor 15 – the strength of sin is the law. If we focus on how not to sin we will only sin more. We live frustrated and angry because we spend so much time trying to control our behaviour and passions failing to realise that this is the problem in the first place!

 

8 lies that many Christians believe

8 lies that many Christians believe