I have come across an interesting question many times: How does God speak to His people? When we read the Bible, God’s word, His manual of how to live our lives to please Him alone, we see that many times in the Old Testament, God spoke to his people through  visions or dreams, or through angels or prophets – God’s messengers. But how does He speak to us today? If He speaks to us at all?

The Bible also tells us in Hebrews that God speaks to us through His Son – Jesus.

“1 In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, ² but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. ³ The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. ⁴ So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.”  Hebrews 1:1-4

If we want to know God better and really listen to Him, we need to know Jesus. How do we do that? How does one get to know the Son of God? Through the Bible – God’s word. That why it is so important that our churches are centred on the Bible and preach/teach it faithfully. That is why it is so encouraging to go to church on a Sunday and hear God’s word being explained and know that by knowing Jesus better we are knowing God better.

Jesus also commanded His disciples – the original ones and all those that follow Him today – to teach people to obey His commands.

“¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20

How were they to teach people to obey Jesus’s commands? They were to bear witness and we need to do it through the Bible. This was Jesus himself telling His disciples what to do. They were to share the good news of the Gospel and teach them.

Listening to Jesus and getting to know Him is how we are going to learn how to live lives that are pleasing to Him.

So, how does God speak to his people? Through Jesus – through the Bible. Praise Him for those churches where the preaching of God’s word is the center of their worship, because this is God’s will for his children: that we get to know Him better and that we obey Him.

God bless!

In a meeting we had at our church tonight we were reminded of the tri-dimensional life that each Christian should have and indeed each church.

We need to look up! Look up to the God who gives us everything. The God who sent His own Son to rescue us by dying on the cross. The God who holds the Universe in His hands. The God who has a perfect plan for each one of His children. We need to let God rule over our lives and we need to get to know Him better!

We need to look around! Look to our fellow Christians and encourage one another to live lives that will be pleasing to God. We need to show more love to one another and build each other up. Be stronger in the Unity that comes from Christ.

We need to look out! We would not be following God’s hearts if we kept to ourselves as Christians. We need to reach out to people who do not know the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I thank God for simple, but very powerful reminder of how we should live for God’s glory.

When I was a teenager in Brazil, I used to attend a Baptist church with very good Biblical teaching. I remember being encouraged to read the Bible and also good Christian books. I always liked reading and made the most of my free time to devour lots of books. One of the books I read was called “Through Gates of Splendor” by Elisabeth Elliot. The books tell the story of her husband Jim Elliot and four other missionaries who had gone to show Jesus to the unreached people of Ecuador called the Waodani.

I remember reading the book and being amazed these men would go to a place where they knew they could possibly die because o Jesus. In their hearts the desire to see those people saved burned more than the desire for their own life.

I read many other things about Jim Elliot and one of his most famous quotes has always made me think: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” I have come across it many times and still amazes me. We cannot keep our lives and if we give it up because of Jesus we are no fools. And what we gain is Eternal life and that we will never lose. It is guaranteed in Jesus himself. Paid with His own blood.

In Jim’s case he literally lost his life when he was killed in Ecuador, but in our case, loosing it might simply mean giving God full control of it – letting Him lead us where He wants us to be and do what He wants us to. it might also mean standing firm on Him and going against the flow of our society. It could also mean something costly to us – for example: being abandoned by a friend because of Jesus or sent away from home because of Jesus.

The Christian life is costly. Sooner or later every Christian faces opposition or discrimination and we should not be surprised when that happens. What we need to keep in mind is what is secured for us. Eternal life with Jesus and that we will always have. Jesus tells us in the Bible that in this world we will have trouble, but He overcame the world.

John 16:33 “‘I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.’”

I pray that God will help each Christian understand more and more that the cost of following Him is not foolishness. May He help us keep our eyes on Him always.

God bless.

This morning I watched the funeral service of Baroness Thatcher. It was certainly a grand occasion and the attention to all the details from those hundreds of people involved was amazing. I am not going to comment on her life or her political career, or the policies of her government. I remember hearing about her when I was growing up in Brazil.

There is something about funerals that makes people think about the future or maybe even their lives. Perhaps some people might even think about the things they believe. The fact is that funerals happen when someone dies and death is the only certain thing that will happen to all human beings.

During the service the Prime Minister David Cameron read a passage from John 14:1-7

14 “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. ² There is more than enough room in my Father’s home.^[a] If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?^{[b] 3} When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. ⁴ And you know the way to where I am going.” ⁵ “No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?” ⁶ Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is.^[c] From now on, you do know him and have seen him!”

Jesus tells his disciples: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” (verse 6) Although this was not the text used in the sermon it is the most important truth about Jesus. He IS the way to the Father. Only through him can people go to heaven.

It does not matter if someone has lived a brilliant life, has accomplished lots, has done charity or not. It does not matter if someone has lived a pretty horrible life and done nothing, or made the worst possible choices one can make. The thing that matters is Jesus. Believing and trusting in Him is the most important thing in life. That is what is going to guarantee eternal life, with God, in heaven.

As I watched the service and saw so many faces, I couldn’t help but wonder if they understood this truth. I wondered if they would go home and think about Jesus and heaven and trusting in God with their lives.

I pray that God would use this occasion to make people think about Him and how they should be giving their lives to Him for eternity.

We went to a friend’s birthday a couple of weekends ago and when we were leaving the party late at night, we looked up and saw the amazing sky! They live in an area with very little light polution and what we saw was truly beautiful!

So many stars and so bright! I don’t know if I would ever be tired to look up into such sky! When we got home on Sunday and I was checking some emails and Facebook updates, I saw that my dearest friend in Brazil posted a verse from Psalm that I absolutely love:

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” Psalm 19:1

It made me smile as I remembered those beautiful stars I had seen the night before! How is it possible that there are so many people in the world still refusing to see that all creation is proclaming God’s glory? The skies, the meadows, the mountains, the deepest oceans all exalting the Creator!

I still have that unforgetable image of that Saturday in my mind! Have you ever tried counting the stars? I have tried many times and sure enough, every single time I failed. Got lost in the counting even before I got to 20! Well, our Saviour has put each one of them in place and knows their names! Isn’t that amazing? He sustains the whole universe in His hands! He is sovereign over all things!

May our great GOD gives strength and courage to always proclaim His glory as the skies do!

If I were to ask anyone today how their Easter was, I am certain that most people would mention how many chocolate eggs their kids had, or how cold the weather had been this year. I would like to think that at least some people would say how wonderful it was to remember and celebrate the most important event in the Christian history. YES! That is the reason why we celebrate Easter. It is not about chocolate, or families, or special food. It is about JESUS and his death and resurrection. It is about completing the work He came to do here. It is also about His victory over death.

The resurrection is the most important thing to celebrate. If Jesus had stayed dead our faith would be in vain. If Jesus had not risen we would all be telling lies. Worse than that, the cross would have no effect and our sins would not have been forgiven.

So, when you think about your Easter next time and the answers you are going to give people, make sure you tell them the reason you celebrated. What better witness could there be? God’s children telling friends and family that they celebrated the King and his resurrection instead of telling them how many chocolate eggs they had?

May God help us to use all opportunities to point people to Him!

God bless.

I had intended to write a post about Easter, which I will still do, but as we have a faulty boiler at the moment, I decided to write something else today. See, I had never really realized how much the lack of heating would affect our household. The house we rent is quite big and it takes ages to heat it anyway. Since we are having quite a cold spring, we still need the heating on and we still need hot water! We have had the plumber out a few times now, and  the problem is still there. It is very frustrating.

I started to think about my life and how sometimes I can be a faulty Christian… that is right. I get all excited about loving God and wanting to walk closer to Him and tell everyone about Him and I read the Bible, I go to all church meetings and I read Christian books and get my creative hat on to think about ways I can teach the kids about Him. I try to be an encouragement to my dear husband and all my friends. These things are all good things. They should be present in my life, but because I am trying to do all of this in my own strength, most of the time, I go into overheat mode. Just like our boiler. Then I go into a cooling period… kind of lose momentum… because I realise I can’t do all of those things on my own. I will never be able to.

I am very grateful for the way God teaches me, even through a faulty boiler. It appears to me I need to have some valves and some pumps changed and readjusted in my life so that I can try do all the good things that God would like me to do in His strength and not mine. I need to give every little detail of my day to Him and trust that He will help me out. I need to trust that HE has a perfect plan for everything, every day of my life.

Many years have now passed since I first met this man who died for me. His name is Jesus. I heard His story of love and gave my life to Him. How could I resist Him? His love still moves and amazes me! I stand before the cross of my Saviour in awe and wonder! Amazing is His love for me. How can it be? That the king of the Universe should die for me? How can it be that God gave His one and Only Son to die that terrible death in my place so that I could have life, eternal life?

“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:4-6

Thank you Lord for Jesus, for the cross and for your amazing love for me! My deepest desire is to love you and serve you everyday! To you all honour and glory.

I have been thinking about laziness lately and the consequences of it. When we are at school for example, and we understand everything and for whatever reason we decide to be lazy about our homework or the work we do in class and just do the bare minimum, the teacher will, most often, think we are unable to do or we are being just lazy. That is very frustrating!

Or if we are at home with lots of little jobs to do, just the normal cleaning and managing the home, and we decide to be lazy, and leave it until tomorrow. Well, we might feel momentarily better and rested, but when tomorrow comes, we will be stressed out trying to make sure everything is done. Or, if we don’t bother about it, the house will just be messy and dirty all the time.

If we are hungry but too lazy to go prepare food, or, even work for food, our bodies will perish. If we complain about others having a house and other comforts in life and we just sit around doing nothing we will never have anything.

When it comes to our Christian faith and growth if we are lazy we are not going to grow or produce fruit. We need to be prepared to do our best to practice all the principles and truths we learn about Jesus from the Bible. It is not enough to just hear about Jesus, we need to let Him rule our lives. We need to work really hard to become more and more like Him each and every day of our lives.

May our God and Father helps us to always desire to work hard in getting to know Him better!

Have you ever stopped to think about the difference between repentance and remorse? Both attitudes present themselves as a form of sadness. Repentance is a sadness because of the sin we committed that offended God. Remorse is a sadness because of the consequence of our sin.

Peter, one of Jesus’s disciples, denied Him 3 times and in Matthew 26:75 we see what happened when the rooster crowed. Jesus had told Peter this was going to happen.

“Immediately a rooster crowed. ⁷⁵ Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: “Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.”

We know that this deep sadness that Peter felt was repentance because he changed. We know that Peter became a great preacher and spent his life testifiyng to the Gospel.

Judas, the traitor, in Matthew 27:3-5 is filled with remorse. The sadness caused by remorse will lead to a bigger error:  Judas killed himself.

When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. ⁴ “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.” “What is that to us?” they replied.  “That’s your responsibility.” ⁵ So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

Repentance will always be accompanied by a change. Take Peter again. in Acts 3:19 he tells us to repent and turn back to God. Repentance is followed by turning back.

^“19 Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord”

It is this profound sorrow that leads us to realize we are sinners and that our sin is offensive to God. When that happens, we know the only thing we can do is  turn back to Him, to His cross and His sacrifice for us. In Him we find salvation and forgiveness.

God bless!