What is love?

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous. It does not brag, does not get puffed up, does not behave indecently, does not look for its own interests, does not become provoked. It does not keep account of the injury.  It does not rejoice over unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

I thank God for protecting me

You can have victory over temptation

You can have victory over temptation

      Temptation is common to man and temptation itself is not sin.  Here it is   important to remember God’s commitment to us as found in 1 Cor.10:13:

“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man;  and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able; but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it.”

Whereas once we habitually entered into temptation, we can now habitually   take God’s promised way of escape.

      Jesus exemplified what it means to take the way of escape when He wastempted in the wilderness.  He was tempted to turn the stones into bread and    thereby meet His own needs His own way, rather than trusting the Father to      meet them.

      His immediate response to temptation was to submit to the Father’s will byredirecting His thoughts to what was true rather than how He felt.  He       answered the tempter by saying, “It is written…”

      In the same way, the moment the Holy Spirit alerts us to wrong thinking, we  can choose to submit our will to God’s and redirect our thoughts to what is       true, rather than how we feel.  Often there will be a momentary resistance       to submit our will to God’s because of man’s natural tendency to exert his       own will.  “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful. But afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”   (Heb.12:1). It is interesting to note that it was after Jesus submitted to       God’s word that the angels came and ministered to Him. 

	“All we do is throw the switch by saying ‘No’ to wrong thoughts and ‘yes’ to  right ones. And the energy from His enormous source of power flows through  us and energizes us to do the very thing we want to do and that He wants us to  do.” Dr. George Sanchez

What a great parable!

This is Shrek the sheep. He became famous several years ago when he was found after hiding out in caves for six years. Of course, during this time his fleece grew without anyone there to shorn (shave) it. When he was finally found and shaved, his fleece weighed an amazing sixty pounds. Most sheep have a fleece weighing just under ten pounds, with the exception usually reaching fifteen pounds, maximum. For six years, Shrek carried six times the regular weight of his fleece. Simply because he was away from his shepherd.

This reminds me of John 10 when Jesus compares Himself to a shepherd, and His followers are His sheep. Maybe it’s a stretch, but I think Shrek is much like a person who knows Jesus Christ but has wandered. If we avoid Christ’s constant refining of our character, we’re going to accumulate extra weight in this world—a weight we don’t have to bear.

When Shrek was found, a professional sheep shearer took care of Shrek’s fleece in twenty-eight minutes. Shrek’s sixty pound fleece was finally removed. All it took was coming home to his shepherd.

I believe Christ can lift the burdens we carry, if only we stop hiding. He can shave off our ‘fleece’—that is, our self-imposed burdens brought about by wandering from our Good Shepherd.

“Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

Hristiyanlar Neden Kurban Kesmiyorlar?*

 Pazar, 05 Ekim 2014 06:37 tarihinde yayınlandı.

Hemen hemen her dinde kurban ya da sunular var. Belki bu kurbanların farklı farklı amaçları var ama varlığı inkar edilemez. Çeşitleri basit tahıl sunularından iğrenç çocuk kurbanına kadar uzanır.

            Eski Antlaşma’da çeşitli sunular vardı: yakmalık, tahıl, esenlik, günah ve suç sunuları.  Levililer 1-7’de bu sunuların nitelikleri, sunumları veriliyor. Sunuları amaçları her zaman açık olmasa da, insanların günahları arındırmak, Tanrı ile insanlar arasındaki ilişkiyi, onarmak, Tanrı’ya tapınmanın bir yolu olarak insanın adanmışlığını göstermek, Tanrı ile insan arasındaki ilişkiyi onurlandırmak, Tanrı ile insan arasında paydaşlık sağlamak, kutlayanların sevinci gibi amaçlar tahmin edilebilir.      

             Bu kurbanların en önemli unsuru bir kelime ile özetlenebilir: Kefaret.

Muslim Kurban Meat: To Eat or Not to Eat?

 [NOTE: THIS IS A GUEST POST FROM A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE USED WITH HIS PERMISSION. WHETHER YOU AGREE WITH THE CONCLUSIONS OR NOT, I THINK THE POST IS A GOOD EXAMPLE OF HOW TO THINK THROUGH ISSUES FROM BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL, AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL ANGLES.]

My family will likely never forget our first Sacrifice Holiday (Kurban) here in Central Asia. Behind our apartment sat an empty lot with a small car wash. On the morning of the holiday, cows instead of cars occupied the lot. The concrete slab transformed into a temporary slaughter house, and the pressure washer rinsed away the blood. To our westerner eyes, the sacrifice was quite a spectacle.

According to the teaching of Islam, those submitted to Allah cut the yearly sacrifice in remembrance of Abraham’s obedience and as a way to share with others. Typical practice involves keeping a third for one’s immediate family, sharing a third with friends or extended family, and giving a third to the poor. In many ways, the custom truly is an act of kindness and generosity.

In our first couple of years in country, friends and neighbors would show up at our door during the holiday with warm, fresh meat in a plastic grocery bag. We appreciated their kindness and accepted the offering. After all, meat from the market was quite expensive, and we didn’t want to offend our neighbors. However, I always had a nagging thought in the back of my mind: “Should we really accept this?”

Developments in Our Understanding of Kurban

During our third year here we became more involved with a church of local believers. We also had developed a number of relationships with local Christians over the years. Out of curiosity we began to ask what they did over the Muslim holiday of sacrifice. Without fail, all of our believing friends said they would refuse the meat. Not that they were indignant. They were simply convinced that the death of Jesus represented the final sacrifice, and they could not accept meat that had been offered to Allah. When I asked about their neighbors’ inevitable response, they said it provided opportunities to witness about the meaning of sacrifice for Christians.

Needless to say, I became increasingly concerned about our own practice of receiving the meat. First of all, I didn’t want to go against what seemed to be the custom of local Christians (at least the ones we knew). Nevertheless, I realized that, also unlike us, many of our believing friends would never even visit their Muslim neighbors on holidays. I wasn’t sure if this was an issue of personal preference, a biblical conviction, or a lack of evangelistic engagement.

Meanwhile, almost all of my expat friends and teammates accepted meat given to them during the holiday. And I had even heard stories of Christian expats sacrificing their own animals as a means of sharing with their Muslims friends and showing Christian piety.

Further complicating the matter, I knew that the Christian scriptures taught that meat sacrificed to idols was forbidden (Acts 15, 1 Cor 10). However, I also realized that there was some debate about the application of Paul’s instructions in his letter to the Corinthians. I was convinced that this was a topic worth investigating.

Islamic Understanding of Kurban