Kingdom Ready Blog

Consider the following:

Matthew 28:18-20 – And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Sometimes in life when working in the christian field of helps and counseling we run into many different situation. Many times people will say one thing and mean another, or tell you something that not exactly true, you know Lie to you. Many time even when lying people will either convince themselves what they are saying is true or actually believe from the being, this is called being deceived and it is usually a form of ignorance or lack of understanding. It can be very hard to deal with people on this level, I know in times past I would be frustrated and even angry with people whom I felt were being deceptive.

Some sobering questions I have been challenged with of late that I thought I’d share with you:

Semantics aside, in the last year or so have you:

1 – preached the gospel to someone?

2 – been the agent God used for someone’s conversion?

3 – read the entire Old Testament, New Testament or both?

4 – prayed for one hour uninterrupted?

5 – prayed for and done good towards an enemy?

© 2011 Jaco van Zyl

To read part 2 of this article, you may click here.

In the last two article I wrote I talked about feeling the emotion, pain, and feelings of other. Also how the root of this stemmed from Jesus and his ministry. I would like to relate more as to what kind of affect Jesus should have on us especially with his departure from Earth. Yet Jesus still has an ever growing connection to mankind. It seems that the question is always, are God and Jesus present, or is it because we just allow them to exist simply in our minds? Are they physically present? How real is the presents of Yahweh (GOD) and the roll and presences of Yahushua (Messiah) Jesus our Lord and Savior? I ask is the weight that we put on knowledge sacrificing our actual spirituality? Is the weight that is put on analyzing the scripture, with our own minds drowning or at least quenching the spirit with in us? The verses below present an interesting view. Is the Love of God present in our lives, which includes our Love for God, and our belief in His son(Or Faith In), our belief in who he was and what was his mission was will directly affects our purpose and mission in life, and most important our status to the coming Kingdom.

© 2011 Jaco van Zyl

To read part 1 of this article, you may click here.

Since I was a Jehovah’s Witness for 13 years and served in various leadership capacities, I couldn’t honestly deny the striking, yet devastating similarities between what is written here and what I came to learn from the Watchtower organisation.  What took the Catholic Church centuries and generations to achieve, the Watchtower achieved in a matter of decades.  Here is why:

© 2011 Jaco van Zyl

Very early in his ministry, Jesus the Messiah made the purpose and ultimate goal of his appearance known in the synagogue in Nazareth when he read from Isaiah 61, saying, “The LORD’s spirit is upon me, because he anointed me to declare good news to the poor, he sent me forth to preach a release to the captives and a recovery of sight to the blind, to send the crushed ones away with a release, to preach the LORD’s acceptable year” (Luke 4:18, 19).  Freedom, release, liberation were the purpose and ultimate goal of Jesus’ saving ministry on earth.  Through the perfection he brought about in fulfilling everything of the Old Testament and sending the “helper” to guide his followers into all the truth, Christian freedom in Christ this side of the coming Age was established in the First Century.  So noble and central was this freedom to the true Christian that Paul wrote:

Unfortunetly I have noticed a sad trend in our churches.  We have some on one side who are serious about seeking truth and understanding doctrinal matters.  We have some on another side who are serious about living the simple truths of Jesus’ teaching.  The sad and unfortunate trend that I have observed is that thes two sides often are in opposition to one another.  The doctrinal side demeans the practical side because they don’t know the truth or seem to have a hunger to search the Scriptures.  The practical side demeans the practical side because they are only concerned about knowing things and not doing things.

Music is very powerful.  It stirs our hearts.  It’s leads us to cry.  It’s a call to shout.  It reminds us of past loves and different seasons.  It is a tool that teaches us.  It influences our minds and our culture.  Words to songs I never wanted to hear in the first place are still stuck in my head today.  Music is very powerful.

When music is used to worship God it is in it’s most powerful form.  It is a sacred bridge between things here on the earth and the throne room of the Almighty.  With that in mind, it’s good for us to be reminded of the importance of this portion of our own personal devotional life and our corporate gatherings as well.

In many people’s minds, the idea that Christmas evolved from Pagan feasts is given more credence by the fact that many Christmas customs were observed as part of Pagan religion and culture. Yule logs, holly, mistletoe, and evergreen decorations all play a part in many different Pagan festivals. But does that mean that they all stem from the same source? Lights and trees, revelry and gift-giving are common to many different celebrations in many different cultures. But this doesn’t prove that they are derived from the same source. If Christians use them at Christmas, why assume they were all taken from Paganism?