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The Posture Of Those Who Truly Seek God

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Our readings (Isaiah 2:1-5 and Psalm 122) inspire us to reach out towards the house of the Lord or to the mountain of the Lord, looking beyond this mortal life. It’s a state of a person always seeking God in life. But sadly, often enough it’s when we realize that we have no options left, that we begin to genuinely seek God for guidance/rescue. That sounds a lot like Israel’s journey! Today as the first Sunday in Advent, we are encouraged to seek God regardless of our circumstances during this new church season to prepare for the coming of the Lord. How fitting that the prophet Isaiah is instructing Israel the correct posture of those who are seeking the Lord at the same time as we, ourselves are preparing to celebrate the coming of Christ our Savior into the world. What should be our posture in this new Church season? Will we be found reaching out to God in the house of the Lord? btw God’s house is here! It’s not going anywhere. Also, wherever you are, you can talk to God and worship ...
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The Importance Of Work In God's Kingdom

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Our OT lesson begins with a word from God by the prophet Malachi a contemporary of Nehemiah. The Temple was already rebuilt, but there was still idolatry and neglecting the Temple service. We would think that since they had already returned from exile and had suffered enough that they would shape up for now, but no. Malachi helped them discover where they went wrong and showed them that God’s true intention was to heal them and to tell them of his plan to send them the Messiah who would to take away their sins. His words were scary; they are a warning! He said: “The day is coming burning like an oven! The day that will burn all the arrogant and evildoers!” As good people of the book, Israelites understood that this wasn’t good at all. It was a warning from God against those who were sleepy, complacent, indifferent to God’s word. They were dishonoring God in those very things where they should honor him. Paul saw this danger in Thessalonians and warned those who were idle and careless....
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Celebrating the Saints

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Today we celebrate the Feast of All Saints! If there is one thing to recognize in the lives of the saints, it would be that they came to know their need for God. This is the very heart of the matter for Christians in every age – a recognition of our need for God. This is a world of confusions and anxieties; with so much fear about the future – we often wonder …where is it all going? We certainly have asked this question during the cold war era. Has it all changed now? No. We still wonder if we are closer to WW3. This is a world that has increasingly gone ungodly/unspiritual. A world that seeks no longer its solutions in God the creator. Yet here in the lives of the saints, we have sure signposts for the Church in the present and into the future of how they lived Christian lives in their world with so many tough challenges. They faced unimaginable executions like being put in a barrel full of hot burning oil. This torture is still existent today: In some places in Africa, on account of...
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Being Built Into A Christ-Like Human

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Facing truth can suddenly be very alarming to us, especially when what we know we should do and what we do (head and action) don’t match. We fall into what psychologists call cognitive dissonance. So, to avoid its stress and anxiety, we begin making excuses to explain away the contradiction. There is no end to which people will not go, to provide such excuses trying to maintain coherence. This happens to individuals as well as nations. The same is true in Genesis: When God asked Adam: " What have you done ?" Adam replied to God: “ The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit to eat and I ate .” These excuses serve as a lollipop to soothe ourselves from the dissonance. Jesus knew this problem. That’s why He showed us the profile of a true disciple because, a disciple is a person who keeps learning to face truth with courage, to acknowledge personal flaws and failures and still heed Jesus’ teachings. Jesus’ description of a disciple is such that, it becomes unmista...
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A Lesson in Humility

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Jesus gives a lesson in humility. I discovered here that there is no shortage of slippery slopes in life. We all have had opportunities to commit faux pas, or we have tripped on a slippery slope and fallen in front of people and embarrass ourselves beyond words. Not always in the physical sense, because we say: “Gee, I put my foot in my mouth on that one.” Well, many of us have done it! For me, living in another culture, I have quite a few stories which I won’t share. It appears that Jesus was speaking about a situation that most likely would bring us to a slippery slope. The expected outcome is embarrassment, which could be severe than that. You see, He cares about our steps in life and He brings a light ahead of us so that we can see and avoid slippery slopes. One thing I nearly missed was, the fact that Jesus was invited to dinner at the house of a Pharisee leader. This is huge! How many of us can honestly say, they invited to dinner those they don’t see eye to eye? A risk that thi...
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Woman, You Are Set Free From Your Ailment!

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What/ how we think, eat or do, can get us sick. I prefer to prevent it. Sad to know that we can contribute to it. I am afraid this was not a choice for the lady in our Gospel today. Her condition that could be best described partly as Osteoporosis, Arthritis or Scoliosis which cause sideways curvature of the spine through spinal instability, vertebral collapse, or joint degeneration. The Bible describes this condition differently from our modern view. It says it was a spirit that had caused it! Not what your typical doctor is likely to say. Now this ancient understanding may sound odd to us, but verse 16 actually emphasizes that it was a bondage to Satan (Spir. Lense.) Jesus came to give us abundant life. He healed/freed her from such Satanic bondage. Jesus saw her pain, bearing this unclean spirit for 18 years! So, being ‘bent over’ is like when carrying burdens so heavy that we can’t stand upright in our inner life. Be in her shoes! You see the ground, no eye contact, no social cues...
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Back to Base Camp in Faith

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You probably know people in your life who were instrumental in helping you become a Christian believer. Mine was Pastor Mitachi. He was Pentecostal (half Congolese & half Tanzanian). He had a wife and six kids and yet welcomed 7 of us in our family. We shared every meal in the evenings. They didn’t have enough for themselves and yet shared what they had. It was the best witnessing of Christian life I had ever been exposed to. It changed me & brought me back to base camp, to regroup & remember God’s goodness. This brings me to ask: How have you experienced the reality of God’s Kingdom? For Abram, the birth of an heir was a big concern, and for Jesus’ disciples, his presence signaled a huge upcoming change that they had yet to understand fully. How about us in our modern world? What is the highest of concerns in our lives? Is it one that consist in making our lives more comfortable? Most likely! The thing is, that’s not actually what the Gospel is advocating for: Our Father’...
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