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.