Conflict happens because of disobedience to Christ

Christ above all: Conversational Evangelism with People of Other Faiths. 

Daniel Shayesteh
#christian #christianity #humanism #christ #church #book #evangelism #faith #faiths

Împreună înspre destinația finală. Lecții de viață de la Kierkegaard

​În „Lecții de viață de la Kierkegaard”, Robert Ferguson afirmă faptul că danezul s-a văzut mereu pe sine ca fiind un scriitor religios, preocupat să-și convingă cititorii de nevoia absolută de a-L urma pe Hristos.
Datorită angajamentului său față de creștinism, mulți filosofi nu l-au recunoscut și nu-l recunosc drept un filosof adevărat, poziția sa fiind discutabilă din punct de vedere intelectual. Asta pentru că el accepta semnificația narațiunii Noului Testament și a divinității lui Hristos, argumentând pentru acel „salt al credinței”(leap of faith) cu care este asociat cel mai mult.
Deși îl admiră, îl apreciază și este fascinat de el și gândirea sa (scrie totuși o carte despre el), Ferguson mărturisește:
„Ca agnostic, nu-l pot urma pe Kierkegaard până la porțile raiului pe care le vede atât de clar în fața sa și ne despărțim întotdeauna înainte să-și atingă destinația finală. Însă, cel puțin din punctul meu de vedere, este mult mai distractiv să ai parte de o călătorie captivantă, decât să ajungi la destinație.”
Mi-au părut atât de triste aceste cuvinte. Nu sunt dispuși prea mulți să facă acest pas al credinței. Din păcate, deși unii prieteni te pot admira datorită convingerilor, a felului în care îți trăiești viața, te vei despărți de mulți dintre ei înainte de a atinge acea destinație finală.
Ești chemat însă să te rogi pentru prietenii tăi precum s-a rugat și apostolul Pavel. Ca „Dumnezeul Domnului nostru Isus Hristos, Tatăl slavei, să le dea un duh de înţelepciune și de descoperire în cunoașterea Lui și să le lumineze ochii inimii, ca să priceapă care este nădejdea chemării Lui, care este bogăţia slavei moștenirii Lui în sfinţi și care este faţă de noi, credincioșii, nemărginita mărime a puterii Sale, după lucrarea puterii tăriei Lui, pe care a desfășurat-o în Hristos, prin faptul că L-a înviat din morţi și L-a pus să șadă la dreapta Sa, în locurile cerești, mai presus de orice domnie, de orice stăpânire, de orice putere, de orice dregătorie și de orice nume care se poate numi nu numai în veacul acesta, ci și în cel viitor. (Efeseni 1)

London Baptist Events

Westbury Avenue Baptist Church

International Women’s Day

Theme: Woman You Are ‘Chosen’

Creative Ministries at Westbury Avenue Baptist Church are delighted and excited to invite all the women in your church; daughters, mothers, sisters, neighbors and friends to the ‘Woman YOU Are Chosen’ Conference on Saturday March 8th 2013, at12 noon. Event ends at 3.30pm.

Our amazing Speakers will bring a message of Value, Identity, Purpose and Influence.  A wonderful, inspiring day that celebrates women of all ages and all cultures. The event will also include a ‘Chosen Open Forum’, for those soul-stirring questions.

Speakers: Pastor Annie Onwuchekwa, Pastor Toyin Jama, Patricia J Morris, and Fatmohn Jama.

We don’t need to hide the message about Jesus to fit in!

Graham Miller, London City Mission Chief Executive, has written a blog post challenging us as Christians not to hide the faith aspect of our community work. Graham talks about the need to address spiritual poverty as well as financial and material poverty.

„We have a message of Good News and hope that needs to be heard” he said. „We don’t need to hide the message about Jesus to fit in with some people’s views of what is acceptable in a pluralistic society. We care about people’s needs – about their deepest needs, material and spiritual.” 
More HERE

Life, Life, Eternal Life

Some of you may remember how Bunyan’s pilgrim, when called back by his wife and children from the journey on which he was setting out, put his fingers in his ears, and ran crying, Life, Life, Eternal Life.

In the same way, my family was against me when God saved me. When I was converted my folks didn’t understood this wonderful moment. They were quite blind. I felt they were my opponents. I was considered a freak. They though that someone has brainwashed me. A heretic with some strange and foreign heresies. I was baptized without their consent. My stepfather didn’t ate with me at the table because he believed that I’ve abandoned the ancestral Orthodox faith, and that was an unpardonable sin. My mother used to come in my room crying and telling me that she would rather see me with a cigarette in my mouth, in a Club with some girls than with a Bible in my hand. She was terrified. But I ran crying, Life, Life, Eternal Life.

This isn’t something new. Jesus said that:

Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household. Mat.10:34,35

If this is happening in your life because of your decision to follow Christ, rejoice. You’re on the right path. One of our Romanian saints said once that, When your relatives will surround you like bees or

A story about grace. The story of Jean Valjean

My first attempt to read a novel was, I guess, at eleven. I haven’t read much in childhood unfortunately. I seriously started to read only after I’ve met God. God filled me spiritually and only then I realized how empty I was intellectually.

So, the first attempt was Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I don’t think I finished it. I did tried to read it several times and nearly always my mum woke me up. I didn’t understood much because of that. No wonder…

The names were interesting though. Jean Valjean, Cosette, Javert etc. French. And Romania likes French stuff. Travel to Bucharest and you’ll see Little Paris. We copy paste Paris without a licence. They tought it will be a good ideea to copy paste the language and culture. I was taught French from my 2nd grade till I finished high school. Maybe that’s why I started to hate it. Nothing personal or national. I assume it was just my old teacher. Her style was slightly communist. But enough about my petite histoire francais

Talking about Les Miserables, I realized that it’s a sad and beautiful story, but also a story about God’s grace. Max Lucado brilliantly points this out in his book, Grace.

Valjean enters the pages as a vagabond. A just-released prisoner in midlife, wearing threadbare trousers and a tattered jacket. Nineteen years in a French prison have left him rough and fearless. He’s walked for four days in the Alpine chill of nineteenth-century southeastern France, just to find out that no inn will take him, no tavern will feed him. Finally he knocks on the door of a bishop’s house.

Monseigneur Myrel is seventy-five years old. Like Valjean he has lost much. The revolution took all the valuables from his family except some silverware, a soup ladle, and two candlesticks. Valjean tells his story and expects the religious man to turn him away. Butthe