Ever felt a bit “dilapidated”? Feeling a failure because of your many flaws? Looking at other people and see the wonderful gifts and qualities and great exploits? It is more common than you think. Much more common. Sooner or later nearly all of us hit this wall of feeling a failure. Inferiority is an emotion that we find in all, yes, all people. So, if you are today feeling a bit dilapidated...
You cannot close a church by closing in. Mao Tse Tung tried it during his communist rule in China. He ruled as the chairman of the Communist Party in China from 1949 to 1976. When he came into power in 1949, there were not more than 2,5 million Christians in China. By 1956 he said that he destroyed the church completely and that there are no Christians left in China. When the “Bamboo...
So often we lose perspective. What is this all about? Where do I fit in the bigger scheme of things? Do I even fit? A perspective of the bigger picture can make all the difference. The following is apparently a true story. During a visit to the NASA space centre in 1962, President John F. Kennedy noticed a janitor. He interrupted his tour, walked over to the man, and introduced himself saying...
Irrespective of who we are: all of us are playing for someone’s approval. Before whom are you living your life, whom do you want to approve what you do and how you live? For some people, it is themselves. They want their own approval. For nearly all people, their dads must approve and also their mothers. Others are playing for the crowds – for glory and fame. What would be for you the ultimate...
How does one distinguish between what is true and what is fake news? It is a good question with a very unsatisfactory answer: with great difficulty. The old “gut feel” method is not working anymore. The world is too complex. You can ask 10 people in Syria about the situation in the country. You may very well get 10 different answers. And all of them may be true. The answer depends on...
The Biblical scholar William Barclay famously described a New Testament Christian as having three remarkable characteristics: “One, they were absurdly happy; two, they were filled with an irrational love for everyone; and three, they were always in trouble!” Persecuted Christians are constantly in trouble. As a Palestinian pastor put it, “If you speak truth to power, power always reacts.” An...
I do not know who wrote it. But maybe it was someone born in 1900. It’s a mess out there now. Hard to discern between what’s a real threat and what is just simple panic and hysteria. For a small amount of perspective at this moment, imagine you were born in 1900. On your 14th birthday, World War I starts and ends on your 18th birthday. 22-30 million people perish in that war. Later in the year, a...
Violence begets violence. Strange how an attitude of peace and love, can break the power of violence and hate. This is how the church of Jesus Christ defeated the Roman empire and many other empires, national conflicts, enmity between tribes and violence and hatred in homes and between families. Here is an example. Brother Alagaw in Ethiopia started an aggressive gospel ministry in his region...
We cannot comprehend and understand God, except what He decided to reveal to us. Don’t speculate about what lies beyond that revelation. You may ask for more revelation, but be aware that with the wonder of more revelation you will be consumed more and more. As intimate and lovely and fulfilling such presence and revelations are, it is always accompanied by deeper fear for God. God is an...
Helen Roseveare was an English Christian missionary, doctor and author. She worked with Worldwide Evangelization Crusade in the Congo from 1953 to 1973, including part of the period of political instability in the early 1960s. She practised medicine and also trained others in medical work. At one stage the mission station where she worked was overrun by rebel forces. She was attacked, beaten and...