Resurrection of Jesus is believers assurance

The Lord Jesus Christ said, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die" (John 11:25-26). 
Good Friday, when we remember the cruel death of Jesus Christ on the cross, is a day that man made because of sin. But Resurrection Sunday is God’s Day. He made it. Only the power of God could have raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Man’s deepest yearnings for life, power, and hope find fulfillment in the meaning of Easter. Resurrection speaks of life.

Secret instruction for dear one

My Dear, this is a secret only for you. I am telling you this in this late at night when all seems are sleeping. : 

If you want to be happy and God be with you, NAVIGATE your Bible daily, surf through the pages with prayer. Always pray to God whether you do work, walking, driving, reading, eating,drinking,sleeping, sitting or any.
 Yes, no need to close eyes always. Call on Jesus. Inform Him what you want to do or are doing. If so, He will guide you and save you from doing wrong. Then, you will always be happy and very lively to do all your duty. You will enjoy doing and never tired as Jesus will help you. Always doing with pleasure means success is heading.
Yes, pray for others, too. Pray for others is one of the best way to demonstrate our 'Love for others'. Remember, our Lord and Saviour Jesus told us to 'Love other as He loves us."
You know prayer goes like a wind. You can not see it and do not know how it travels. But it is blowing.Your secret prayer blows and move the object ( the persons for whom you pray) when God answer your prayer and God always answer earnest prayer for others. As far as possible, do not tell them that you pray for them if you pray that they may stop their bad habit. Just pray for them secretly, God will bless you too when He bless them.

Go!

Evangelism, like following Jesus, is all about going to where the broken and the lost and theforgotten are and loving them as Christ loved us. It’s not, I am convinced, about finding new ways to get them to come to us on our terms and to learn to believe the way we believe. Jesus commanded us to “Go” and the command is still valid today. If we have any hope of accomplishing this command, it will only be as we go out in the power of the Holy Spirit and as we cooperate with Him in the process. Evangelism is also more than simply telling people something they don’t know yet. It’s not about information. Without the evidence of a life that is being transformed by the power of this message, the message itself is useless and without evidence. Evangelism is something we must be willing to live out, to demonstrate daily to others around us without relying on words alone. We can only accomplish this in the power of the Holy Spirit. We have to intend to live a life that bears witness to the transformational power of Christ. It will mean a full surrender. It will require great faith. It will not be easy. It will not be quickly  accomplished. There is no formula. It is not for the faint of heart. Nevertheless, if you call yourself a follower of Christ, then you have already entered into an agreement to follow Him with your whole life. You’ve already taken on the job of ambassador. Your life is already being directed into the path of surrender and daily dependence upon Him. I encourage you to engage others in conversation. Tell your story, and listen to their story. Share your experiences with God in natural ways, not rehearsed speeches, but with a genuine voice of concern and compassion. Love others the way Jesus loved you. Invest in people. Trust that God loves them far more than you ever will, but ask God to teach you to love them more anyway.

For Here?

In Matthew 5:13-16, Jesus declares that we, His followers, are the salt of the Earth and the light of the world. I believe this means God simply wants us to be who we are, and what we are, no more and no less. Jesus makes the point that salt is for being salty and if it doesn’t do that it is worthless. He explains how light is meant to be seen in the darkness and if you light the candle and then hide it, what good is it? This illustrates the futility of attempting to be something other than what we are. Sometimes we think that to be a good witness for Jesus we have to be the most holy and perfect person in the room. We have to smile as much as possible. We have to wear a mask of holiness and be careful not to let anyone see weakness or doubt orfailure in our lives.

I can remember once when my Dad came home from work and told me that, after months of trying to be a witness in his workplace he had discovered something unexpected. When he was doing his best to appear “Godly” in front of his co-workers, they kept him at arms length and avoided him. That day he had been in a conversation with a co-worker who was not a Believer and he had accidentally cursed out loud in his frustration. His co-worker sat back and stared at my father in shock and disbelief. Then my Dad hung his head and apologized for his coarse language, admitting that he struggled sometimes in this area. His friend leaned forward and began to ask him about his faith. He wanted to know where my Dad attended church. Over the next few weeks this man would come around and ask my Dad questions about the Bible. What had happened? My father had simply let his mask fall to the ground. He had confessed to his friend that he was a sinner and that he needed the Gospel himself.

Jesus called us salt and light. It only takes a small flicker of light to push back an ocean of darkness. It only takes a few grains of salt to season a steak. Too much light only blinds those who are searching. Too much salt ruins the most succulent of meals. I found myself wondering how great it would be if Christians around the nation would begin to take down their masks and just be who they are in front of their co-workers and neighbors. Instead of pointing our fingers and saying, “You sinner! You need to repent and receive the Gospel!” maybe we should be saying,

“I am the wretched sinner who needs the Gospel. Here are the ways I would be hopeless without Jesus.”

Maybe then people could see our small, flickering light? Maybe then they might taste the small grains of salt upon their tongues?

Doubt

Jesus is our blue-print for life in the Kingdom of God. It’s a life that starts here and now, and continues each and every day that we live and breathe on this planet. It involves living today as if God were on the throne of this Earth ruling it as King, right now. We don’t have to wait until that day comes, we are invited to live under His rule and reign today. Jesus said we cannot enter the Kingdom and follow Him unless we daily die to ourselves and obey His teaching. This is the Gospel of the Kingdom which Jesus came and died to preach and communicate. There is no other Gospel in the Scripture. The Gospel of Jesus is the Gospel of the Kingdom. Grace is an integral part of the process for those who hope to follow Jesus. Without Grace we could not hope to daily surrender our lives and fully submit to God’s will in favor of our own desire. Grace does not cancel out our daily need to surrender to Jesus as our Lord.

The phrase “Jesus is Lord” is powerless unless we actually live it out in our lives every day. Without the daily act of surrender, it’s simply a pointless bumper sticker slogan. Simply put, the Gospel of the Kingdom has been drowned out by the more popular televangelical version of the Gospel that says, “Repeat this prayer after me and you can go to heaven when you die.”

A by-product of this kind of teaching has been the cheapening of the decision to follow Jesus with your whole life. Instead the calling to follow Jesus is treated so lightly that I’ve seen Christians urge total strangers they’ve only just met seconds earlier to pray and ask Jesus into their heart so they can go to heaven when they die. It’s almost as if they believe that this magic prayer will take anyone to heaven if they say it twice and click their heels together. Instead, I would urge us who follow Jesus to allow people around us to get to know Jesus first, and  maybe then they can make an informed decision about whether or not to surrender their life to follow after Him.

There’s a great story about the great evangelist Charles Finney who would regularly tell his converts that they were not truly converted to Christ. Imagine that. A famous evangelist urging his newly converted to doubt their faith in Christ.

The story goes that he would cast doubt upon their faith in Christ and send them away saying, “I don’t think you really are a follower of Jesus yet.” After a few weeks the person would invariably return after a season of introspection and declare that they were now a true follower of Jesus. Finney would then find a reason to doubt them once more and send them on their way again. Eventually the person would return, declaring with fire in their eyes that they “knew” they were a follower of Jesus. When Finney could no longer dissuade them he would let them go with a nod, “You might actually be a follower of Jesus after all.”

If anything, Finney employed doubt to test the faith of those who claimed too eagerly to be genuine disciples of Christ. Whether or not you agree with Finney’s tactics, please don’t treat the decision to follow Jesus too lightly. These days we are far too eager to ask a total stranger to pray on the spot to receive Jesus, before they’ve even really understood who He is or what such a decision might mean to their life. I believe the decision to follow Jesus is more like a commitment to enter into a life-long marriage and less like the decision to rent a movie. We would never counsel someone to go into a marriage quickly, and yet we are sometimes over-eager when it comes to pushing people to enter into an eternal relationship with Jesus.

I would suggest we let people have a chance to get to know Jesus before we push them into praying to receive forgiveness and follow Him. They need to know who He is first. Can you imagine a total stranger coming up to you on the street and leading the conversation in such a way that you felt compelled to marry his daughter as fast as possible? Who is this guy? What is his daughter like? Why is he so eager to get her married off? All of these questions would be flashing into your brain as this stranger tried to convince you that all you had to do was to repeat the vows after him and everything would work itself out later. If you were wise you would flee from that person as fast as possible. Yet, this is almost exactly the sort of witnessing and evangelism that many Christians practice, or at least visualize, when it comes to reaching others for Christ.

Jesus does not force Himself upon us. Do not force Jesus onto those who do not know Him yet or who are not ready to make this life-changing, eternal decision. Better yet, try living a life that bears witness to the compassion and humility of Jesus each and every day. Maybe then people will actually ask us why we live this way and what it was that transformed us into such patient, compassionate, loving people. Then we can make sure we are prepared to give to every man an answer, a reason for the hope that lies within. Let’s live a life that provokes the question rather than throwing around the answers to questions that no one is really asking.

k � r����e” (Matthew 19:26).

Out of the Comfort Zone

When I really get down to analyzing my own personal comfort zone I have to admit that it’s the part of me that I have not yet surrendered to Jesus. It’s the small, precious part of my life that I just want to hang onto and keep for myself.My comfort zone is the last bit of ground where I keep my own dreams, my own personal territory where I hoard the things that I am afraid to give up to God.

The one thing in the world that Jesus wants most from me is exactly that part of me that is still unsurrendered. He wants the part of us that we don’t want to let go of. More than anything else, He wants that last piece of our heart that we’re afraid to give to Him. Maybe you know what I’m talking about. Maybe you have that one small part of your life that you’re still afraid to give to Jesus, because if you do you’re not really sure what He will do with it. Maybe God will screw up your life if you surrender that last bit to Him? Will He ruin your plans? Will He jack up your dreams? Are you sure you can really, really trust God with this one, precious thing?

Our comfort zone is that last part of us that we’ve yet to lay on the altar to Him. Maybe we’ve given him 99% of our selves, but it’s that last 1% that we’ve held back, whatever it may be, that Jesus wants most of all. It’s what He suffered for. It’s what He died for. It’s all of you. I think really our ability to trust God is a huge issue in our day and age. We have difficulty trusting

God because so many of us have been abused by people in authority over us. We’ve been exploited, even by the people in the Church who should have loved us and empowered us.

Somehow we’ve got to reach a place in our walk with Jesus that we trust Him with everything. Do we love God more than we love our comfort zone? We cannot remain in an attitude of fear.

We cannot be afraid that we’re going to loose what we’ve been given in Christ. We cannot build containers to hold onto the blessings of God. We are called to give it away. We’re called to give away the blessings. We’re called to give away the Kingdom. We’re called to give even our very lives away to others so that they might see the love of God and turn to Him.God can be trusted. He’s demonstrated this upon the cross. He humbled Himself and became a servant to us all. He submitted Himself to us. He bowed down and became a servant to us. He emptied

Himself of His power and position. He willingly surrendered to our brutality and He endured the shame that was intended for us. His cross demonstrated that even though He has all power and all authority at His command, He will not use it to exploit us or to harm us.

If we can look upon the face of Jesus, beaten and humiliated in our place on the cross of shame, and still doubt His love for us, or doubt that He wants what is best for our lives, then we have no hope of every fully trusting and loving anyone in our lives. “Freely you have been given, freely receive” -Jesus (Matthew 10:8)

”Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” - Jesus (Matthew 10:39)

Don’t let that one simple thing you’re holding on to keep you from fully receiving the great riches that God has in store for your life. Let go of it. Surrender it to Jesus today. Receive the treasure He has buried for you along the way.

“The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy he went and sold all he had and bought that field.” - Jesus (Matthew 13:44)

The truth is that God does ask you to give up something when you come to Him. It’s called “Everything”. That’s all He wants from you. Just everything. The Good News is that what you give up will never compare to the boundless riches of His Kingdom. When the Rich Young Ruler went away from Jesus because he was unable to sell all that he had to give it to the poor, Jesus turns to His disciples and encourages them by saying “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

What is the thing that Jesus says is impossible for man? It’s giving up our material possessions in exchange for the Kingdom of God. What is it that He says is possible with God?

It’s the ability to let go of our worldly wealth and possessions in order to gain the incomparable treasures of The Kingdom. The response of the disciples to these words from Jesus is also worth noting. Peter asks Jesus what will become of them since they have left everything to follow him (in Matthew 19:27).

It was true. Each of the disciples had walked away from their day job to dedicate themselves to Jesus as apprentices. Peter and his brother, on the day of the largest catch of fish in their careers as fishermen, left the fish dieing on the beach to follow Him. Matthew, the tax collector, stood up and left the money on the table in the middle of the day to follow Jesus.

Each of the disciples, in his own way, turned away from his life and gave it up to discover a new way of life. In response to Peter’s question Jesus makes an astounding promise that I’m certain almost no one really believes. He said, “I tell you the truth…no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will

fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age…and in the age to come, eternal life.” (Mark 10:29)

Here Jesus assures those who give up worldly possessions and even family relationships, will receive back one hundred times as much. Not just in Eternity, after death, but here and now, in this life on Earth. Jesus promises more than a one-for-one repayment for what is given up for the sake of following Him. He promises more than a ten percent return on your investment. He promises more than you can imagine; One hundred times as much, in this life and in the life to come.

Do we believe Jesus? Do we have the faith to trust Him in this promise? Can we really let go of our dreams, our hopes, our plans, our security, our comfort, our money in exchange for an abiding and enduring trust that He is faithful and true to His word?

The Hard Question

In thinking about what it means to be a missionary to my community and culture, I’ve had to ask myself, “Do I have any meaningful relationships with non-Christians?”

Honestly, the answer is that I don’t know too many people who are not Christians. This means that I need more practice at being missional. Jesus was a man of scandalous inclusion. He

regularly spent his time with known drunkards, and prostitutes, and people commonly referred to as “sinners”. He hung out with people you and I would never dream of hanging out with, and not as an outreach, but simply because he loved them and wanted to have a relationship with them.

“While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire

mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”- Jesus (Matthew 9: 10-13)

God’s heart is for those who are the least and the lost. If we’re honest, we’d be scandalized to find out our pastor was spending time partying with the prostitutes, drunkards and ‘sinners’ in our community. Yet this is where Jesus was most often to be found, at the home of someone the righteous would never be caught dead with. In my own heart, I want the scales to fall off so

I can really love people the way Jesus did. I want to love them for who they are, not judge them because of what they’ve done. This means risking my own reputation in favor of caring for the unlovely.My own scandalous inclusion could result in my being radically excluded from many “righteous” gatherings. Am I really ready to make that choice? Can I learn to love that way?

The Mission

 Recently, my wife and I felt a calling from God to leave the local church we had helped to plant. The dream God had given us was to start a new sort of a church, one where everyone took following Jesus seriously, where the practice of compassion to others was expressed in the giving of 100% of the offering to the poor and the needy. Our conviction was that everyone who called themselves a follower of Jesus was, by default, a missionary to their culture. Because we wanted to be reminded of this, we called our new church, “The Mission”.

Our challenge has been to inspire this sort of activity within our own weekly house church gathering. While we’ve called ourselves, “The Mission,” not everyone has come to the place where they have their calling figured out completely. This is where discipleship comes in. Our goal is to lovingly assist everyone in our house church to discover their gifts, their talents, and their mission field.

Part of what inspired us to start a house church was the idea that we, as followers of Jesus, should imagine the Church less in terms of where we meet, or the building we gather in, and more in terms of who we are and what we do. Our goal is to learn what it means to “be the church” and not to just “attend a church”. Our assumption is that “being the church” is what Jesus had in mind for us in the first place. Jesus did not suffer and die to commission a Body of Believers whose only goal and aim was to meet once or twice a week and have a little meeting.

He intended that we would be His full-time ambassadors to the world, living His teachings with our entire life, every single day.

The Christian life isn’t lived on Sunday morning or Wednesday night. That might be when we meet and sing songs together, but that’s not where the Christian life is actually realized.

Fellowship is great. Corporate worship is great. Sermons are great. But when we live for God, I believe we engage in the best form of worship possible. (See Romans 12).

Conversation, Community,Conversion

While it’s already been established that Jesus had no real formula when it came to evangelism, it does seem that that there are several guiding principles that can help us in our pursuit of a more missional way of life. The first thing we see is the absence of an “any size fits all” approach to sharing the Gospel message. Instead, Jesus employed a tailor-made, “this is just for

you” style of evangelism. He took the time to get to know people. He listened to them speak first. He spent hours in prayer with the Father, and when it came time to answer the question, “What must I do to be saved?”

He communicated the necessary information in a way that the person asking could understand and receive the truth.The only formula I can see, at a very basic level, begins with  conversation. We have to learn to communicate well with others. The first and greatest secret of good conversation is simply utilizing your listening skills. People want to share what’s in their

heart with someone who genuinely cares to know. We have to develop a heart for others and that begins with knowing them in an intimate way. We can’t learn to really know someone or

begin to love them until we’ve listened to them. I’ve always loved the phrase, “Listening to someone is so much like loving them that most people can’t tell the difference.” It’s true.

We can fulfill the command of Jesus to love others simply by closing our mouths and laying aside our prepared speeches and evangelistic jargon in order to listen to the people around us with sincere compassion.

So, we begin with conversation, which at some point leads to community. By this I mean that, as we listen to others we begin to develop a sense of commonality. We identify the areas where we have things in common and as we build on these we soon discover a bond which goes beyond casual acquaintance and moves into friendship. Through this ongoing relationship we

eventually earn the right to be heard by them. Because we’ve spent so much time listening to what is in their heart, we develop credibility with them. Our opinion, suddenly and miraculously, actually matters to our new friend. Because of this new, genuine relationship, the Gospel message finds the fertile soil necessary for conversion to take root and germinate. Our role in this process then is simply obedience to God and the practice of unconditional love towards everyone God leads into our path. So, the pattern, if we must have one, would look like this:

1) Conversation

2) Community

3) Conversion.

Discovery

My friend Paul was sharing with me a story about a recent trip to the mountains where he had an odd spiritual experience. It all started while walking with some of his friends along mountain trails on their way to an overnight camp out. As he was crossing over a stream along the way he randomly picked up a rock to take along with him, something he did quite often on

treks such as this one. It wasn’t a particularly interesting or colorful rock. He really had no specific motive for picking it up initially other than that it was black and it felt good in his hands. Almost reflexively he pulled the rock from the cold water, dried it on his shirt, and placed it in his pants pocket as they continued up out of the stream and up along a newfound trail.

As the group of friends made their way up the mountain they happened to pass an older gentleman coming down the same trail. After a brief bit of friendly chit-chat one of Paul’s friends asked the older man if he had any words of wisdom for their group.

“You mean, like a mantra or something?” the old man asked. “Yeah, something like that,” Paul’s friend said. The older gentleman took a short moment to reflect and then he said, “I’ve got just two words for you,” he said. “The first is ‘Immanuel’, and the second one is ‘Maranatha’.” The group nodded their heads and smiled, and after a bit more chit-chat the two groups parted.