The Grace Faith

Today is the great day, the day known to be the birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not true and unscriptural that our Lord Jesus Christ was born today on the 25th December, however, the point is, He was born and we celebrate that. The bible records that as He was born, by the night the angel of the Lord appeared to shepherds and said, “...Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths lying in a manger” (Luke 2:9-12). Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the city of David, yet when He was born the bible says He was put in a manger for there was no room for them in the Inn. This is the Son of David; He has every right to be inside the Inn, in the comfortable place. But hey, He was born in the poorest place although He was rich. The bible states it correctly that although...

One of the most confusing topics in the Christian society today is the one of confessing your sins to be forgiven by God. Well, I am going to take you on a spiritual tour whereby I will be quoting on scriptures on what exactly it means to confess your sins. I have touched on this in one of the topics but not in a profound perspective. So we have to be careful on this topic as some Christians practise this as a norm. The bible says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).  When John wrote this he was not referring to believers but to some Jewish Christians. Now do we confess all of our sins for the Lord to forgive us? Well, let me take you on a logical journey in the spiritual realm. Let us consider when John the Baptist first came, “Then all the la...

  “Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham, and said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then He said, ‘Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.’ So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him”  (Genesis 22:1-3). This is the part I call ‘God’s love story towards mankind.’ I describe this as the allegory of the sacrificial death of our Lord Jesus on the cross. God showed love upon us human beings when He sent His only begotten Son on the cross to die for the sins of mankind. This is in no way suggesting that we have to give back our all in terms of finances to God because what God did here was to test Abraham. However, let’s look at this wi...

The return of our Lord Jesus is near as we can see what is happening in the world today. The bible teaches us that His rapture is something which will happen suddenly, meaning no one will know when He will come. The Lord Jesus said to His disciples, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32). So the Lord did not want us to know the exact day or year in which He will return but only have an idea. However, we have an example of the rapture in the bible when the angels of the Lord came to rescue Lot from the land of Sodom. The apostle Peter said of this event, “And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked (for that righteous man, dwelling among them tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawl...

“And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, scoffing. Therefore she said to Abraham, ‘Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, namely with Isaac.’ And the matter was very displeasing in Abraham’s sight because of his son. But God said to Abraham, ‘Do not let it be displeasing in your sight because of the lad or because of your bondwoman. Whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to her voice; for in Isaac your seed shall be called’” (Genesis 21:9-12). Ishmael was fourteen years older than Isaac and, therefore as he started mocking Isaac, it displeased Sarah and realised that Ishmael might demand Isaac’s inheritance. Ishmael is the illegitimate child; therefore he has no claims of the inheritance since there is the legitimate child. Sarah, in order for her to avoid the squabbles at a later stage, she chased Ishmael and Hagar his mother. Abraham was enraged by this saying of Sarah to chase them out bec...

The son of the promise is born, and is born fourteen years later after the son of the flesh (law) was born. At this stage Abraham must have been thrilled and puzzled at the same time because, there are two sons now born of different women. The first son was promised to the mother in wilderness (the picture of Sinai) and the second son to Abraham after he had bowed down to worship the Lord. Many people have not realised the blessing therein worshipping, many miracles in the earthly ministry of our Lord Jesus occurred after men bowed down to worship Him. This is not to enforce that we should always kneel down when we pray. Abraham was very old at that time together with Sarah and Sarah was barren. The Lord said to them, “Is anything too hard for the L ORD …?” (Genesis 18:14). The same remains true even today, the Lord still possesses the power to change the unchangeable. Our role is to trust in Him, not by saying but by resting. When we rest, the Lord works and when we work the Lord rest...

  The first thing we remember about Jesus’ cross is that through it all our sins were forgiven. I am going to explain this today further in this manner, God is living outside time. With His infinite view of things, He is able to see the past, present and future. It is like looking at a train from above on the curve in the hill, if I am riding on a helicopter I am able to see the beginning and the end of the train. So God’s view of our lives is like that. We cannot see the future, but God can. Therefore, God’s all cannot be as man’s all. He will forgive all because He can see all of your life. Man’s all is different because he cannot see what is coming, while God knows the beginning of one’s life to the end. For example, I personally forgive my child for all the wrongs she did and not the one’s she will do simply because she hasn’t done them and I don’t even know how fierce they are going to be. Either way, when she does the wrong I am bound to forgive her because I love her and als...

The story of Lot is one the saddest stories of believers in the bible. Lot was a righteous man before God although he did not have his life altogether. The bible says that his soul was tormented daily by what he saw and heard in Sodom. Even today we have Christians who live in a community that has no fear of the Lord at all. They speak all kinds of profanity and blasphemies and they are applauded. In the long run, some Christians who live in such communities end up adapting to that lifestyle of the infidels. Lot’s daughters were also contaminated by what they saw in Sodom as we see what they did to their father. Tell me, where did they learn about making someone drunk? They learned it from somewhere. But God still did not forget about him and his family, because he was righteous. So the bible says that God delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filth conduct of the wicked (read 2 Peter 2:7). God cannot forget His own people. Although there were lot of temptations around Lot,...