Today we will be having a book review:

A while back I saw a Christian film 'Pilgrim's Progress', based on the famed book by John Bunyan.

Therefore, recently as I was grabbing a book to read in my bath, I picked up this classic book and began to read it. Often it is very true that the books are way better than the films they are in, this is also the case with Pilgrim's Progress.

As I was reminded of the story and how real the analogy was to general Christian walk, I was just stirred by God's goodness: that despite, our failures, shortcomings, and being astray sometimes he still loves us and never sends us away.  This grace, this mercy just could not relent but it brought me to wanting to cry and just worship God for his goodness.

So I encourage you to read the book.

If you happened to have never heard of the book its about a journey of a man called Christian, to find the celestial city and freedom from sin. Whilst on his journey, he often strays away from the path to his goal and encounters many people who both seek to help him and to destroy him. The whole book is an analogy for a Christian life and journey to God. Hope you'll read it ir have read it, stay blessed!

So recently during my Greek Seminar reading we have been encountering the word agapeo meaning to love, implying that it is a higher, everlasting form of love. We also encountered the word Philo which is a verb meaning to love, but also to be familiar with, be used to, or kiss. Often Philo is used to describe familial Love between parents and children or siblings, even friends. As I am continually looking at the bible in its Greek form, I notice that both words are being used.
in John 21:16:

"He said to him a second time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? He said to him, Yes, Lord; you know that I love you. He said to him, Tend my sheep."

In this sentence Jesus is using the word Agape. but Simon replies with Philo. 

I looked at that and I was like WOW. This just speaks volumes, although Peter did not necesserily answer exactly what Jesus asked, Jesus was still gracious, in accepting his human love that. peter's response, "I love you" could mean: I am familiar with you, I love you like my friend, you are my dear, my own. 

Jesus' answer to Peter's confession: "Tend my sheep", can tell us a lot about ministry and living a missional life. namely that we must first know God, have a relationship with him and be used to him, spending time in his presence, following after him. I hope that was interesting and thought provoking, Be blessed!

So I would like to tell you guys a testimony of what God is doing my life.
Recently as I was thinking how I can serve God, in my busy life schedule, and I was thinking moire about stepping out in praying for homeless people.

Just before last week I had dream of me with someone else (I don’t know who they were) praying for homeless people in 3 separate locations, I don’t know where any of the places were except one, oxford road near the palace theatre. Me and this other person were just praying for the homeless people, the dream was open ended in the fact that I didn’t see the fruit of my prayer. So a few days later, I took the dream as Gods prompting and as I walked past the place on oxford road that I had seen in the dream, I saw a homeless man and went a prayed for him and another man. 

Over the past week since that day I have prayed with about 12 people. One said he felt the pain had gone, everyone one of them have been very thankful and touched by the action. Many opened up their lives to me. I didn’t go preaching the gospel I simply show Gods love to them though prayer and listening, that is all, nothing complex or time consuming. All I wanted to be is to be is an instrument through which God can administer his love to the people.  What I want to encourage you to do then is to think about what can you during your usual activities in order to give Glory to God. You do not have to do what I do but ask God to inspire you.

As usual Be blessed.

So, it has been a while since I last published a post. That’s because I was sooo busy with work, uni and other stuff that I had barely any time. So today I was having my second exam of university. The course was Intensive Greek 1. Over past few months I was taught Greek up to a GCSE level from scratch and having a test was extremely important to me because in order to carry on with my degree programme I would have to do a classical language.

It was always my dream to study Greek and to be able to read the bible in its original text. It gives me such a thrill and pleasure to look at the original text and understand it (when I can). So the pressure was ON! I needed 50% in order to carry on with the course, which does not sound like a lot but believe me its still hard.

So as I was worrying (wrongly) about this exam and getting all my friends to pray for me, I realised that it is God who holds my dreams. There in that moment I surrendered my dreams. I said to the Father, that he could do whatever he wants with my dreams, to crush or to raise them. At that moment I never felt so happy, knowing that I let go of my self, and embraced him and his will.

A creature, I always thought, is the happiest in its own purposeful place. Likewise, we are the happiest when we let go of ourselves and truly pour out our worship through surrender to God. Was I still nervous? Of course, very much so, but I knew that whatever happens my God can work everything for the good of his glory and my benefit. So my challenge to you is this: what are your dreams? And have you surrendered these dreams with which you are so concerned about? This is not a one off thing this is something we all needs to do everyday, saying that I am certainly not perfect at this either, hopefully I’ll improve. Hope this blessed you.

Last week on Sunday morning I was visiting my home church. There during worship God has really spoken to me by showing me a vision. In it I saw myself drowning, yet desperately trying to get to the top of the water. However, the closer I got to the top of the water or even if I caught a mere breath above the water, I would soon find myself being pulled downwards, further into the deep by an unknown force. During my attempts to save myself all I could hear was just one phrase that was spoken over me: 'embrace it'.

I asked the Lord for the meaning of this; I understood that the water was his love and grace. 

My attempts at saving myself was out of a result of not being used to it. So as a result, I feared drowning. But you see, the man is not really me, it is my flesh. We all must die to ourselves when we come to Christ, yet we still have to remember that the death is not to be feared or ran away from because the water that surrounds us is his love, through grace and in his love we have the strength to answer his invitation to salvation. The death is not merely an end but a new beginning. 

Then I was also reminded that I already I am a new creation, my struggles with trying to live like a 'good christian' or a holy child of God are wrong in my mindset. I am justified, I am perfect in his sight, Christ's righteousness was imputed to me. The mindset I was reminded of is that of a new creation. 2 Cor. 5:17 says that I am one so I should embrace who I am in him and what he says about me. My failures and attempts to get things right are need to be seen in a new light: that it is not I who love but Christ who lives in me, he loves me regardless of what happens. It is Christ who deals with my shortcomings, I can't change them they require his work. His grace is my safety net, what I need to do is to live like a new creation because I am one, he will sort out the rest. I hope this somehow would make some sense and bless you all. 

Recently I heard a story, where a homeless man has found a purse full of money and instead of keeping it and using to provide food and shelter for himself, he gave it back.

Anyway, The story was very moving, but what was more moving was the fact that he was the same man that I saw on the market street in Manchester pretty much every time I was on my way to work. Moreover, some people have driven out this man from my workplace because he was smelly and off-putting.

Yet, the story, which struck me the most, is that a few days later I have found on my Facebook newsfeed that this guy has been given a free accommodation because of his act of kind honesty. When I read that I felt like I wanted to cry. Immediately, I saw the grace of God and the kindness of God.

So regardless of whether we are Christians or not, God is still kind, he is still gracious. Often we think of the love of God and we subconsciously, reserve it just for Christians or just for the good guys, but his love is everywhere regardless on our performance, he is not a God of just standard theism, for whom you have to perform. For the father what matters is his son’s doing. God does not pick and choose who receives his love because we all have received it. Romans 5:8 says that God loved us while we were yet sinners because as a result of this Love Christ died for us. You may believe in universal or limited atonement, to me none of those things matter too much, these are side issues, what is important is that God loves all of his creation, and he cares about each and one of us, from the drug Lord to a homeless man.

Sometimes, God wants us to just listen to others not to shove religion down people’s throats but to just love them be patient with them. God is patient with you as well as he is also patient with them. I thought of a new challenge as well: from tomorrow, every time I go to work I will look at the crowds and at everyone, having in mind that each one of them is equally loved by God, just like I am. What I hope to achieve from this is deeper revelation of God and of his innate attributes. I hope this blessed you and encouraged you to try this challenge out.

Few months ago I was having an exam in my module of Intensive Greek. I was afraid, I was trying to revise but nothing would stick. Yet throughout this entire time of worrying and asking God for peace, God has been speaking to me that he will take care of the exam. He asked me to trust him.

I gladly accepted this word, yet I still continued to worry and stress! I came to the exam; it was very hard. However, I felt ok about it. Then results came in the following week and I was told that I passed with a 2:1! I was so happy and joyful, encouraged to not give up on learning Greek but to carry on. After the massive flood of joyful emotions I remembered God’s word: that he would sort it out.

Immediately I thanked him for the result and for being with me. At the same time I was convicted to repent from not trusting him. Despite my failure to spend enough time in reading the word, despite my lack of prayer, God was still good to me. He’s love is completely unconditional.

I know now that it never is about our performance, because if it were, I would be screwed. He is faithful despite our faithlessness, despite our ups and downs in our walk. God is steadfast he cannot change; he is Eternal (or if you want to sound fancy, atemporal).  He will fulfil his promises, because he cannot lie, he is not a man (Num. 23:19). Just think of Sarah, she laughed when she was promised that she would conceive, and despite her unbelief, God fulfilled his promise.

So I challenge you: believe his promises, ask him what he thinks about your situations. Often we do not do that because we are afraid of the answers he will tell us, but he will not hurt us. Everything he tells us he does so out of love. I am by no means perfect in all of this. I am still growing. Yet, I believe that nobody is a master at doing all this stuff, but that is the lifestyle of faith, by which we are justified, its not about us and what we do, instead its about him.

God bless!

Recently I have been having great time in God's presence, where God has been just revealing to me his faithfulness and love. The more I thought about God the more I started to call him father, not really dad or daddy, but father. I did not avoid saying this because I thought that it is wrong to address God like that but I have said those words with the spirit of of worship behind it, being glad that he calls me his son.

So the more I thought about the word father, the word Abba sprung to my mind and I began to look this up and there are some interesting theories people have put up on the translation of he word and why it was used. Firstly many people think it means daddy and it was the first sort of word toddlers have learnt, but it turned out to be wrong. Within the middle eastern culture, even elderly men were called father. The word is more respectful but also indicates a close relationship with the person. However, once I have established that, I thought about why Paul and and Mark wanted to used the word father (pater/πατηρ) as well. My theory is that is not just to create emphasis, as Greek and Hebrew often tend to repeat a word or a phrase for extra emphasis (because there were no exclamation marks!). Instead, the word Abba must have had something to it that was not simply good enough to describe God as father. In Greek the word pater, simply denotes a biological figure or someone adopting someone, simply father, the choice for the use of Aramaic was possibly unnecessary because I doubt that there were many Romans who spoke it in Rome or Galatia. 

I think, Paul and mark wanted to separate the fatherhood of God away from what the world perceived it as, because in the context children were not always pending a lot of time with their families, instead they had friends, tutors and nurses to take care of them,  unless they were poor, then they were made to work instead. yet Abba is different because you not only worship him out of respect but also you acknowledge him to be someone with whom you totally shared your life with. So I think these passages show to us that this world and the Greco-Roman world has/had  fatherhood messed up and a new definition was used. 

Then again maybe it was not so bad, after all the word Abba was used only 3 times in NT. Nevertheless, be challenged to believe that our God is not far removed but wants to be close with you and wants you to call him and call out for him, to be vulnerable and totally dependent on him, so no matter the care how big or small just say deeply with joy and worship in your heart: "Father/Abba". These are just my thoughts they could be right or wrong. I have no theology degree so don't quote me as the bible; hopefully this was some food for thought.

Funny story, on Saturday I was at work and unusually I was working on the tills, that is because I work in the kitchen making the sandwiches (I work at a fast food restaurant).  Anyway, whilst working in the tills I was just praying that I would be joyful and that my Joy would shine brightly the light of Christ to the people I was serving.  That turned out successfully. About 6 hours later, I got really cheerful and tiredness was more prevalent. Oh well, still God is sooo good.

Whilst working, I was dealing with different kinds of change, 20ps £s etc. As I was running low on some I just asked God, to give me more 20ps or whatever I wanted and then the next customer would pay in great amounts of change exactly as I needed. Then I thought that this was amazing and I asked God to provide more of other change. My next customer was a casino worker who paid over £16 in change! That was really amazing.

Through this simple life story God just showed me that he is with me no matter what I do or have done the previous day, regardless of my sin and failure he loves me; his Agape/ Hesed is totally steadfast and unconditional. Did I need the change? Not really. I could have just asked a manager and she would have given me more. Still, at times God just does not give us our needs but also our desires, kind of like a parent giving a child ice cream or a lolly. They don’t have to do that; the child does not need those things. The parent does that because they love their children, and God works on similar bases. So my challenge to you is to believe that regardless of your performance, that God always provides. Do not be afraid to ask for even your wants, sometimes he will say it’s a god idea for you to have this or that sometimes not. As Christians we can say that God totally spoils us with his ravishing love. 

Recently I was having a crisis moment in my life. This was because I had an important exam coming up and my spiritual walk has not been improving much. I have not been growing in maturity. Yet God, being faithful, has given me words of hope and just graciously reminded me that it is not me who causes myself to grow; instead he guides my walk. This just goes back to the idea that in our relationship with God he is the leader and we are his sheep and friends.

Next, with regards to my desire to impact the world and to share the gospel, being an effective witness; he also said that it is his Spirit who does that. I cannot change others at all. Then, He took my worries away with a vision.

In that vision there was a bright light, I could not see at all what it was and then my sight zoomed out of it and I saw the timeline of my life. It was glowing, meaning that I am living person, also that God sees me as passionate. I saw the timeline from beginning as well spanning beyond the current position of my life. Yet, God being a wise father did not show me my whole life at all; he did not need to. Instead through this vision I understood that we do not always see the picture. Often when we feel like we are not doing enough, like our spiritual walk is in depression, God still prevails with his perfect plan. Therefore, we should never live on feelings or by sight but just trust God on what he says, because once when we get worried that we are not performing we enter the tent of legalism instead the tent of his grace. Hope this blesses you.