Need to inspire others

These days we could read in the Gospel of Mark how Jesus chose his twelve disciples and gave them a task.

From the gospels, we also can see how Jesus attracted people by his words and acts, like the many mriracles he did. We shall not be able to attract so many people by miracles, because we are not able to do such miracles. Also with our words, we probably shall not be able to attract so many people.

Naturally, it would be lovely if we also could bring such Good News, like our master teacher Jesus Christ brought.

We got inspired by him and we would love to inspire others also.

A person who wants to inspire others to be grateful or wants to convince others of the value and truth of gratitude to God has to be a person who others see as living a life of struggles greater than their own. Otherwise people dismiss the caller unto gratitude as speaking down to them, hypocritically, from a place of privilege and ease. 

We have to have empathy with those we are speaking to. We have to imagine what they are going through and what they are thinking about. In a certain way, we also do have to anticipate their questions or thoughts. A very important factor in our preaching is also the way of our listening. We do have to be all one ear to the ones we want to convince of the reason to follow Christ.

Some may think it is to difficult to go out and to preach to people. Or they think one has to have a special education at the university. But it is not that one has to belong to the clergy. Even when you would want to become part of elders in a church, there is not such a high need of religious education at a higher institute.

You also do not have to think preaching or witnessing would be too difficult for you, or that you would not be able to cope with it because of too many struggles.

Perhaps for this reason and also because one cannot deliberately put oneself in a bigger struggle than what God has ordained for one already,

Not every person is going to be able to inspire every other person towards gratitude and peace of heart. And perhaps this is also why much of mankind gives authority, in matters of spirit and truth, to the ascetic monk-like figure than to a person living in relative comfort and abundance. 

When just an ordinary person, living an ordinary civic life, that person can connect to the life of others, knowing exactly what they too have to undergo. Their experiences will not come across as other-worldly as they might to clergymen who often have no sense of the daily concerns of ordinary citizens.

Whether such an association between struggle and virtue (of piety and authority) is warranted remains open to debate. There is some merit to the idea that a person who is in struggle or strife themselves would be able to relate to and find authentic and convincing, someone else who knows what struggle feels like. But the association of struggle with material deprivation is a bias and judgment of a materialistic mind and hence a problematic judgment.

You do not have to be in possession of special attractive tools or books to reach people and to tell them about the times to come. A simple Bible is all you need so that you can show the Word of God.

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Please find to read:

1. When a day of darkness and of gloominess shall come
2. When having found faith through the study of the Bible we do need to do works of faith
3. To step up – Presenting fruitful words
4. Matthew 10:24-31 – The Nazarene’s Commentary: Do Not Fear – Preach!
5. Today’s thought July 10 Reading 3 – Matthew 11:4-6: Good news preached to the poor
6. Spread the word
7. Repentance for the forgiveness of sins has to be preached to all the non-Jews in Christ his name
8. Christians having the right heart to call others to go to God
9. Reason to preach #5 Trained to do it God’s way
10. How should we worship God? #6 Preachers and Teachers
11. United helping to spread the Good News
12. In all circumstances preaching Christ
13. From house to house #1: Not ceasing to Preach daily in the temple and in every house
14. Making proclamation as a herald
15. Preach
16. Preaching as Public Speaking
17. Memorizing wonderfully 33 Preach the acceptable year of Jehovah God
18. Great need of the church today is to feed the flock and get our people into the word of God
19. Sharing your big scriptures for tough times
20. Taking as many opportunities as possible to proclaim the Good News
21. Evangelizing in the “Time of the End”

Making church

That God our prayers wants is sometimes found strange even by Christian believers. But our Creator has His eye on us and would like to have it tht His creation loves Him as their father. We should show our presence, our gifts and our service as the expression of our gratitude to God. Jesus gave us the task to pray to His Father as well instituted he at the Last Supper, just a few hours before his dead, the Memorial Meal.

As such we do have received the task to come together, regularly meeting to remember the dead of Jesus.It is our presence our physical presence, our attendance, that we have to give to God. As part of the limb of Christ we should become thriving blood and give the community warmth and health to live and grow.
Remember the old story about the blind man who also had great difficulty hearing? He couldn't see and couldn't hear, but he never missed church. He was there every Sunday. Someone asked him, "Why? You can't see what's happening and you can't hear much of what is being said, but you are always here at church. You are always here. Why? Why do you come?"
He answered, "Because I want the world to know whose side I'm on."

It does not have to be every Sunday or even on Sunday, but we should have to be able to find a day in the so many hours which lay for us. Every one of us who finds himself a believer should be courageous enough to come out in this world as a follower of Christ and show it by his attitude.The world should tell by the way you live, by your love for the church, by your devotion to the church, by your church attendance record, whose side you are on. In the spirit of gratitude to God for his inexpressible gift of Jesus Christ, we can give our prayers and our presence.

When we as believers would unite and come together we shall be able to create church. We can become church.

We can pray, too, that God will be with you and will use you as His instrument of love and peace and grace. But then you have to be prepared to be willing to give yourself as an instrument in the hands of God.

Then it becomes important that we ask God to create His instrument here on earth for us. We can pray that we can form with others a church where we may be faithful in continuing the preaching, teaching, healing, caring ministry of Christ. Please pray for your church. The church needs your prayers.

In the articles Opbouw van een ecclesia en verbonden kosten & The Ecclesia in the churchsystem we go in to present the possibilities and difficulties we have to face forming an ecclesia.

We show that the point is that we are all needed. But, you know, there is another thing to be said that is even more important: We all need to give. Giving is good for our souls. It's the spiritual expression of our gratitude and commitment to God and it is so important to our spiritual health. Virtue is its own reward and so is giving. The real reward is in the giving. And this giving can be in different ways. Everybody has something in which he can excell. that what we can do well we can use for the community. We can give our service to all the believers who want to become united.

When we join hands in grateful service to God we are making the church together. When in gratitude to God for His inexpressible gift of Jesus Christ, we give our prayers, our presence, our gifts and our service. We are making the church together. Let's do just that - for our own sakes, for the good of others, and for the greater glory of God.

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Read more >  The Ecclesia in the churchsystem

For the Dutch version go to  / Nederlandse versie: Maken van een kerk

Dat wij allemaal samen kunnen werken in het verwezenlijken van een ware kerkgemeenschap kan u vinden in  Opbouw van een ecclesia en verbonden kosten & uitgebreider in de Engelse versie The Ecclesia in the churchsystem

Charity never humiliates

Charity never humiliated him who profited from it,
nor ever bound him by the chains of gratitude,
since it was not to him but to God that the gift was made.

Dutch version / Nederlandse versie > Liefdadigheid vernedert nooit

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Joy: Foundation for a Positive Life

JOY:  Foundation for a Positive Life

   Wouldn’t you like to experience deep and enduring joy?  Wouldn’t you like to be joy-full?  Be assured ~ you can!

   The world has a woeful shortage of joy and a surplus of fear, worry, discouragement and depression.  Even the “pursuit of happiness” and obsessive pleasure-seeking do not bring deep and lasting joy.

   Let’s first understand the difference between joy and happiness.  Happiness is an emotion, and God never intended for people to be in that emotional state all the time.  There is “a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:4).

   Biblical joy ~ true joy ~ comes from filling the spiritual void with good relationships, primarily an intimate relationship with the One who is pure joy.  Jesus put it this way:  “I am the vine, you are the branches.  He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit” (John 15:5).  That fruit includes much joy!

   The Bible speaks much more often of joy than of being happy.  “Hap” means chance and is the root of several words ~ happen, haphazard (dependent on mere chance), hapless, happenstance (a chance circumstance) and happy.

   Happiness is a glad feeling that depends on something good happening.  God wants us to experience happy times (as long as God approves of what is happening).  But His greater desire is that you have unconditional JOY.  Jesus said His joy would “remain in you” and “your joy no one will take from you” (John 15:11; 16:22).

   Think of joy as a strong foundation that supports a variety of healthy emotions, including happiness. The long-range evidence of joy is general gratitude, contentment, optimism, a sense of freedom and other positive attitudes.

   Joy looks out and up, not inward ~ A common mistake is to think that getting something will make you happy.  We tell ourselves, “If only…”  But joy and happiness come much more from giving and serving than from getting.

   The Apostle Paul reminded his listeners that Jesus Christ had taught this very thing:  “There is more happiness in giving than in receiving” (Acts 20:35, TEV).

   To grow in joy, we must resist not only self-pity but also being self-centered and self-absorbed. For joy to flourish, we must focus on loving others and especially on loving God.

   Joy is largely composed of gratitude ~ gratitude for the wonderful things God has done for us and His “exceedingly great and precious promises” for our future (2 Peter 1:4).  Gratitude produces joy (1 Thes. 5:16-18).  And our gratitude should be for other people’s blessings as well as for our own (Romans 12:15).

   Try to follow this biblical formula:  Add to your life gratitude, humility, forgiveness, faith, hope, patience and love.  Take away resentment, anger, fear, worry, materialism, greed, jealousy, complaining and pride.  The result? JOY!

   Joy is spiritual, supernatural and essential ~ God is joyful ~ far more than any human being ever was!  It is tragic that many people think of God as somber and stern rather than cheerful and smiling.  He is enjoying His creation and especially the delightful anticipation of many new “sons of God” (Rom. 8:14, 19).

   True followers of Jesus Christ will be joyful also.  Psalm 68:3 says, “Let the righteous be glad;…let them rejoice exceedingly.”  God desires that we serve Him “with joy and gladness of heart” (Deuteronomy 28:47).

   Paul spoke of the “joy of the Holy Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 1:6). It is through His Spirit that God shares and communicates His joy.  And when Paul lists the “fruit of the Spirit,” joy is second, preceded only by love (Galatians 5:22-23).  If we are filled with godly love, won’t that produce joy?  Of course it will!

   Joy is a major topic in the Bible.  In the KJV, “joy” appears 158 times and “rejoice” 198 times (not counting other variations such as joyful, joyfully, joyous, jubilant, happy and glad).  Rejoice is the verb form of joy, meaning to feel or have joy!  Clearly there is great emphasis in the Bible on expressing joy.  That explains why the Bible also emphasizes prayers and songs that praise and celebrate God (James 5:13; Psalm 150; Colossians 3:16, 17).

   Joy is not optional.  The Bible repeatedly commands us to rejoice!   The most emphatic exhortation is in Philippians 4:4, where Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.  Again I will say, Rejoice!”

   Joy because of trials?  God’s joy continues to flow through His people even during their suffering because of their rock-solid hope of future everlasting joy in His Presence.  They know that all suffering is limited to this short life, and the time will soon come when “there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying” (Revelation 21:4).  They “rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:2).

   We also have good reason to rejoice because of our trials when we understand how God is using those trials to help us build godly character.  “And we know that God works all things (even severe trials) for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). More specifically, Paul wrote that “we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope” (Romans 5:3, 4 NIV).  James wrote, “Consider it pure joy…whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance” in remaining faithful to God (James 1:2 NIV).

   And because Christ suffered for each of us, we should have a special joy when we are persecuted for our faith.  Jesus said, “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven” (Matthew 5:11, 12).

   The number one key to Joy: God’s Spirit ~ Supreme joy is God’s nature and character!  We see proof everywhere in God’s creation, i.e., birds singing, animals frolicking, flowers blooming, brooks babbling and the sun shining!

   Our unique joy begins when Christ comes to live in us (Gal. 2:20). We then have an intimate relationship with the Lord God, through His Son ~ the One Psalm 43:4 calls “God, my exceeding joy!”  God’s Spirit is a tree of life, producing life-giving fruit which includes great joy!

   Jesus prayed for His followers “that they may have My joy fulfilled in them” (John 17:13). He taught, “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full!” (John 16:24).

                                                                                         Don Hooser                             

Life in gratitude opens glory of God

“A life in gratitude opens God’s glory.”
- Bengt Sundberg

"It is always possible to be thankful for what is given,
rather than to complain about what is not given.
One or the other becomes a habit of life."
- Elizabeth Elliot

“Gratitude is not only the largest of virtues, but the parent of all other.”
 - Cicero

“Real gratitude means that we must thank God for what he has done for us,
and that we tell Him what we have done for Him.
- George R. Hendrick

"Offer to God thanksgiving,
And pay your vows to the Most High."
Psalm 50:14

God I thank You for al your works
and for supplying to be allowed to enter your kingdom.

Dutch version / Nederlandse versie > Leven in dankbaarheid opent glorie van God

Even in tough times remembering the blessings

"Even when you are experiencing tough times,
remember the blessings in your life.
It’s like sprinkling sunshine on a cloudy day."
- Alice Gray

"When you reach the end of your rope you will find the hem of His garment."
- Unknown

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and
admonish one another with all wisdom,
and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs
with gratitude in your hearts to God."
Colossians 3:16

"And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind
and touched the hem of His garment; for she said to herself,
'If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.'
But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said,
'Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well.'
And the woman was made well from that hour."
Matthew 9:20-22

Reading the New Testament, let the words of Jesus inspire me
and let me be touched by his spirit.
God let me be a worthy follower of Jesus Christ
and let me look at the life on the bright site.
I am thankful for the blessings I am able to receive.

Dutch version / Nederlands > Herinner vele zegeningen ook in moeilijke tijden

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