Joseph, the dreamer

Have you ever heard of the story about Joseph? You find it in the book of Genesis beginning with chapter 38. If you carefully read this story, you will come across attitudes and things that are very common to all of us today. These could be positive as well as negative. It all begins with a young man who dreams. This is a good thing to do. Are you a dreamer?. Or have you stopped dreaming?

People often find it hard to believe in the other people's dreams. Have you not noticed that? Like Joseph's brothers, they did not believe him, especially the meaning of his dreams was that they would all bow before him. Later on, they wanted to shut down his dreams. They ended up selling him to the merchants with the idea that it would be the end of his dreams. Friends, a dream is like a candle you hold as you walk on the street. That will not stop the reality we find out there. There will always be stuff that may extinguish your candle. The wind will continue to blow on the street, and you will be required to protect the light.

Here are a few things I would like you to keep in mind:
1. When a dream is about the good of people, nothing or nobody will shut it down. Joseph's dreams were not about people bowing before him, but saving lives.

2. Believe in your dreams and work towards them. Whatever you do, do it accordingly. You would require some disciplines and character for their fulfillment. Joseph was sent to prison because of his spiritual and moral values. He refused to fall into adultery with his master's wife. Holding to values that honor God and your neighbor is very crucial. You need to have these values as well. The outcome of your faithfulness to God and His word may not be revealed immediately. But it will some day.

3. You will find adversity and opposition on the way. Never give up when you come across such things. Even in prison, Joseph continued to hope and believe that things would get better.

4. Do good for people no matter what. A dreamer ceases every opportunity to bless other people's lives. Be the eyes to the blind, a father to the one in need, and always welcome the stranger. Joseph interpreted people's dreams while in prison. He never gave up on his faith in God. He was always faithful. Even when things pull you down, you don't have to give up on your dreams. However, you should continue to do as much good as you can for people around you. Remember that it was one of the people, Joseph helped interpret his dreams, that a door opened. Doing anything for someone may open greater doors in life you would ever imagine before.

My friend, hold onto your dreams. They will come to pass according to God's timing!


Emmanuel

You're a stumbling block to me

Did you know that the first person to use name Church is Jesus himself? Well take your bible and you will find it in Matthew 16: 18. Amazing, isn't it? Don't stop there, keep reading through verse 23. Do you read this: "Get behind me Satan! You are a stumbling block to me..."

Actually the story begins with the question Jesus asks the disciples about who people think he is. Then he asks them who they think he is. Peter's response was that Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus responds to that saying that it is not flesh and blood that have revealed that to Peter, but God, the Father.

Then if you go to verse 23, you will come across Jesus turning to Peter to say: "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me..."

It appears here as if Peter has two faces, a Rock on which Jesus will build a church, and a stumbling block to Jesus. Is this not who we are and we move from one to the other? Yes, but what do you want to be: a stepping block, a rock Christ will build upon his Church, or a stumbling block to Jesus and his church?

In Matthew 26: 75, Peter, after denying Jesus, wept bitterly. That was his repentance. It was the time he chose to become the Rock on which Christ would build his church. What do you choose today to be?

My hope and prayer is that all days of your life, you always choose to be the Rock for Christ to build upon his church. In other words, be the Church wherever you are and to everyone you meet all day long!

Emmanuel

Where is your brother Abel?

Have you ever read the story of the first human family on earth? That is in the first book of the bible, which is Genesis. If you read chapter 4, you will come across two brothers: Cain and Abel. These were children of Adam and Eve, the first man and woman of all human kind.

Cain was a tiller of the ground, like what we would call today a farmer. Abel was a keeper of sheep, or a shepherd. They were both raised as good believers knowing that at harvest they should give the best of their produce. When they both brought their offering to the Lord, God approved Abel's and had no regard to that of Cain.

Of course, this generated some jealousy in Cain against his brother who will eventually decided to murder Abel. When he had fulfilled his evil plan, he thought that no one would know this since it happened in the field.

However, God spoke to Cain asking him this question: where is your brother?(Genesis 4: 9)" Is it not the same question that God has been asking all of us today? Your friend, family members or neighbor, are they not supposed to be on the same path where you are right now? Are they not also people God cares for? Where are they? God is asking the same question to you.

Not that you have murdered someone, but perhaps you have hurt a friend, a spouse, your child, or a neighbor. Because of what you did, these people have left. They have gone away from your life, your neighborhood, your church. God is asking you: "Were are they?"

I feel it is time to go and get our brother, sister, parents, children, spouses, church members and all the other people, who have gone away, back to God. Do you not think it is time for all to get back together? Do you not see that it is time to over all these little things that divide and separate us? Go out and make sure that, by all means, Abel gets back to God and the community of believers!


Be always strong and of good courage!

Emmanuel

Zeal of your house will consume me

Have you ever read the story about Jesus cleansing the temple? You will find in John 2: 13-23. There is a statement that I would like you to ponder for a moment: "zeal of your house will consume me." Interesting, isn't it? The disciples are the ones who remembered this scripture from the Old Testament (Psalm 69: 9). Jesus was upset with what was going on in the temple. He overturned the tables of money changers and asked them to take all the things out of there.

Do you remember a moment in your life when you felt like nothing or nobody could stop you from doing something? Have you ever felt like some boiling water, and which pushes you to do something? I guess that's very similar to what Jesus felt even though it was for a different purpose. Like the disciples said, Jesus was consumed with zeal, which made him do what he did.

Are you consumed with zeal for God? Do you have an eagerness about church? Do you wait with anticipation for Sunday to come so that you go to church? Do you have an ardent interest in pursuit of your spiritual growth?

The church needs today that intense heat, which was in Jesus and later in his disciples. It is because of that we are now Christians. Zeal made them preach the Gospel, live out God's word and endure persecutions for the sake of God's kingdom. Nothing or nobody stopped them from bringing the Word of God to every creature and in every corner of the world.

You and I both need zeal, and we will get it if we ask for it from God. Can you do that?

Be blessed and always of good courage!

Emmanuel

What's God's Will for your life?

I have come across people struggling with the question about God's will for their lives. Are you not also one of them? Do you not wonder what God's will is for you? Of course, there are books out there that suggest steps to follow in order to know what God wants of you.

All these are wonderful ideas and good stuff, but there is a scripture I thought of sharing with you: 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18. It goes as follows: "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."

Three things here that should be apart of our everyday life: rejoice, give thanks and pray. The author ends saying that this is God's will. What do you think? This is it. It is all you need to do.

Notice that we do not have to rejoice depending on our mud or what's going on. No, we should rejoice always. Rejoice is related to welcome, enjoy and be glad. In other words, to rejoice is to accept life with joy as it comes and embraces every opportunity to live to the fullest of who we are.

In your everyday life, you should learn to be thankful for all that comes your way. The scripture tells us to be thankful in all circumstances.

Remember to always pray. Here Paul, the author of our today's scripture, suggests to pray without ceasing. So much of what goes on around you often prevents you from spending some time with God. It is God's will though that prayer time takes the top position of your to-do list for your daily life.

Friends, when you do this, you will then begin to see God in everything you do on a daily basis. You will begin to hear God's voice in a distinct manner about issues in your life.

Rejoice, pray and be thankful always!

Emmanuel

Making a Name for Yourself

Making a name for yourself, is this not all about what our society tells us to do? As a child, you are encouraged to study hard and be competitive. You hear words such: "why can't you do like your other friends?" It is more about becoming like someone else and making a name for yourself.

This idea of making a name for yourself is as old as our human nature. If you read Genesis 11, you will find a community that wanted also to make a name for themselves. They decided to build a city, a tower, which could reach the heavens. The idea did not, however, please God who decided to come down. God shut down this human project and dream. Remember that these people who were speaking one language. But, God confused their language so that they could not understand each other anymore.

Two things we see here, and which will never please our Maker. When you make a name for yourself, you become self centered and God has therefore no place in your life. Or God is pushed to the peripheries of who you are.

The other thing is that who do you want to give glory to for your accomplishments in life? Is it because of the talents or gifts you have that you are who you are? Or Is it all about the One who invested all these things in you? When one's focus is to make a name for themselves, they spend more time thinking about creation instead of the Creator.Is this what you do?


How about making a name for God instead of making one for yourself? How about decreasing so that Christ increases in you? When you do this, God will always be pleased. Your memories will go from one generation to another.You will be like the Samaritan woman (John 3) or this donkey on which Jesus rode on at his triumphal entry to Jerusalem (Matthew 21). The church has been talking about the woman and the donkey for more than 2,000 years. They made a name for the Lord, and the world and church talk about them for generations. That's how you may also be remembered if you make a name for God instead of making one for yourself.

Be blessed and always of good courage!

Emmanuel

Build me an Ark

At the beginning of this year, it was said on the TV that the rate of crime nation-wide has decreased. That was great news, wasn't it? One of higher police officers from the Des Moines area (Iowa-United States) said that they actually increased their presence in a lot of places. That could be the reason why crime and violence were not as bad as the year before. Violence, immorality, and evil are still prevailing in the human hearts and communities.

There are similarities between what we are experiencing now and what took place during Noah's time, a story we find in Genesis chapters 6 to 8. The situation of humans became a concern in God's sight, like today's is. When everyone else was living according to their desires and inclinations of their hearts, there was a man who was righteous and who walked with God. Today, I will compare him with you and I, people who know about God and His word; people who have a Bible, which is God's word.

Noah is the guy, God will approach to ask him to build an ark. He did it the way God told him to do. Do you not think that the world today also needs an ark? Yes, God is asking you to build Him one.

There is much violence, corruption, greed, lust and evil out there. The ark is the only place where people can find refuge and what they cannot get from the world. But God needs someone to do it for the sake of the world.

One of the instructions, God gave Noah as he was building the ark was that there should be many rooms in the ark. Remember that Jesus said that in His Father's house there are so many rooms. As Christians, we should make room for others to come into the house of the Lord. If you are sitting at church in the fellowship room, always leave an empty chair for one more person. This is just an example telling us that closed circles do not exist in God's plan for humanity.

All kinds of animals and birds were in the ark. That's interesting, isn't it? I guess at some point lions could have been served the same food that goats would eat. It was a time of no complaints. What I visualize is that all bears with everyone else. Unconditionally accepting one another the way we are is something the church needs to be a real ark for the world today. Change happens only when people get into the ark.

Why would you want people to be like you before they even join your church or group? Notice that in the ark there were clean and unclean animals. This means that no matter who we are, we should always be welcomed into God's community. The church has become so judgmental that people go away and leave. God is the one who changes hearts of people. That's God thing. Why not leave it to Him and do our business, which is to build a place that will be welcoming to ALL humans?

When like Noah, we provide a side door, not a front or a back door, people will be able to come into our church. No one ever wants to use the front door of a church. It does not even work that way. That will be very disturbing to the person walking in and the people in worship. The back door is often referred to as what people use to leave the church. We lose people through the back door. These could be the reasons why God did not want Noah to have a back or/and front door, but just a side door. That's what we need at our church or in our Christian communities, which could be a covenant, small or study group.
Whatever church, community or group you belong to, may you build an ark for God to welcome the depressed, the hungry, the needy, the homeless and the lost!

Be Blessed and always of good Courage!

Emmanuel T Naweji

Who are you?

"Who are you?" Haven't you ever heard this question? Perhaps in these forms: "Who is she? or Who am I? Yes either someone else has asked this question or you have done it to yourself.

All this takes us to defining our identity, which is quite a very complex thing. Lots of people or even all people struggle with determining who they really are. In most cases, the context in which we live plays a big role in describing who we may be. There are often some standard things established by culture that we tend to use in defining who we are.

At the end of this whole process, you will find out that celebrities, stars, political leaders, people we look up to somehow are the ones we use as references to defining ourselves. Here is a question: "Have you not noticed that you often want to live like someone else, but never like yourself?"

Don't you feel that it seems to be so hard to really live like yourself because you don't know who you really are. Let me take you to a scripture we find in John 1: 19-28. This tells us about the ministry of John the Baptist. For a while, he was preaching and baptizing, but people, especially those in leadership, wanted to know who he really was. When they asked him the question: "who are you?"

John did not want to identify with the Messiah or prophets, but he said that he was just the voice of the one who should come to help prepare the way of the Lord. Notice here that in Israel titles such as Messiah and prophet were like what we would call now celebrities or stars we watch on TV or have in our communities. He defined who he was based on his calling and mission. He did not define who he was from the ordinary cultural context. No he told them who he was on the basis of who he knew he was called to be.

Friend, do not kill yourself trying to be who you will never become. You are already who you are, and that does not depend on how the world around you may think about you. The best of you can be is in God. When you seek God's face about your life, then you will discover who you really are. Do not let anything or anyone try to tell you who you should be. Your identity is hidden in yourself, which God, your Maker, can help you find!

Be always blessed and of good courage!

Preaching in church Today

Sermons are becoming predictable in church today. Have you noticed that? Last year, someone told me it is easy to know ahead of time what the preacher of the day may be saying. This person went on pointing out that all messages seem to be around love.

Below are the types of sermons that we should avoid to deliver or hear:

1. A message that does not point us to Jesus Christ
2. A message that does not call us to repentance
3. A message that does not call us into action
4. A message that does not match the vision of the church

When these do not happen in your church, multiplication and growth both spiritual and physical will not happen as well.

I wonder if preachers realize this. It is not just a job. It is a calling that we have received from God. Being a preacher is a mandate that the Creator has given us to take His word to all humankind for the transformation of the world. Therefore, repentance, restoration, reconciliation and healing should happen every time we open our mouths to share God's word.

Be blessed in this ministry of the word!

Emmanuel

Arise and Shine

This is a reflection based on Isaiah 60: 1-6. The Israelites are back in the promised land from exile. They then find out that the land has been filled with people of different cultures and religions. They wonder how they should continue to be God's people in the midst of such a diversity. They wonder how they would be able to let Christ shine through them.

Is it not the type of society we are in today? Look around and you will see people from different religious and cultural backgrounds. How do we shine and let all these folks around us see Christ through us?

Isaiah, the prophet, brought a message to the exiles. It is also relevant in today's life for all of us to use. He begins by saying: "Arise, Shine." Then he gives the reasons why we should do this:
1. It is God's time and our time.
2. God's Light has risen upon us and God's glory will cover us.The light is already here. We should just let it shine through us. There is no reason to fear because God is walking with us and His glory will always cover us.
3. Lift up your eyes and look around....The world needs real stuff of life.
4. People should come and proclaim the praise of the Lord.

Don't you see that God's will is that all people may see Him? The only way to do this is arise and shine again. This is going to take an act of faith because it is about obedience and following the Lord wherever He leads us.

It is also about letting God use our single word that comes out of our mouth to encourage, inspire and touch people's hearts. Arise and shine is to offer who we are to God so that every part of our being becomes again God's. Everything we are and everything we do gives praise to the Living God.

Arise and shine means a risk taking mission. It feels uncomfortable to tell people about our faith or religion. However, if we don't tell them, how would they be able to hear the word of God? Our actions and words should be used for that purpose.

Christianity has been what it is today because centuries ago, people like us chose to arise and always shine. They did not let anything or anybody stop them from letting Christ shine through them. They knew that if they did not do it, no one else would.

Today, if you and I do not tell people about Jesus Christ who transforms lives, then the TV, radio, the internet will take our place. ARISE and SHINE!