Bapa's Notes

Discourse

The pulpit has now become the source of entertainment where the minister acts as the stage performer, the script writer, the producer and nearly a one-man show in the pretense of preaching the gospel of Christ. Most of their teachings are based on their personal interpretations of the biblical narratives. They used incomplete quotations from the scripture in order to drive their point unchallenged and invalidated.

Those at the receiving end cannot rebut what these poor preachers have continually taught from the pulpit. If they misquoted the verse, nobody can tell them their transgression. If they mispronounced the words, nobody cares. If they told a lie, it remains unchallenged.

Church members perceived to be disinterested on the activities of the church, ministers would used the pulpit as their bulwark to launch their verbal attacks against lukewarm members. From the pulpit, these despicable church ministers who considered themselves as anointed leaders could spew endless verbal poundings on those nonchalant members. This pulpit abuse is prevalent among Protestant groups. 

Many church ministers continually summon their parishioners to give reverence to their preaching at the pulpit every Sunday. They place uncommon emphasis to their Sunday preaching as the ultimate part of their church activity. At the pulpit, the minister enjoys peculiar authority to talk anything under the sun without someone rebutting them or refuting the things told before the members.

According to this idea, the preacher is appointed by God as the mouthpiece to the wandering new generation of Israelites, the Christians. This notion tries to nullify the universality of the Spirit of Christ that was first poured out on early believers. All had been filled with God's Spirit and everyone were given gifts. Unfortunately, in the present setting, only the pastor acts all the ministry because he is paid to do the tasks. 

 

Clouds in Heaven

Many people would like to elevate the notion that going to church every Sunday is a matter of life and death importance. For them, the activity is not just an indispensable duty of man but they consider this as a pre-condition of receiving God's material blessing. If someone is not faithful in going to church every Sunday, then the desired material blessings are also withheld by the Father to His children. This conditional character imputed by man towards God is disturbingly wrong.

Man's limited understanding tries to discover the limitless character of God. It is ridiculous for mortal men to portray God according to bias ideas obtained from learning handed down by bigot religious predecessors. In order to correct such misconception, God Himself dwelt with mankind through Christ's incarnation. It is incumbent for the limited man to rely always on the living Christ for perfect revelation about the all-powerful God the Father.

Most of our knowledge is anchored on what we see through our naked eye. If we look above the heaven, we always see white clouds glued on blue background. However, when you embark on an airplane and reached 30,000 feet altitude, you will realize that your former idea of clouds' proximity to heaven is shattered. It is similar to our limited understanding about God.

 

Knowing God

The knowledge about God emanates from God Himself through the revelation of Jesus Christ. When Jesus declared that He knows the Father, He was telling the disciples to trust in His perfect knowledge about God. Jesus alone has the exclusive, unerring knowledge about God the Father. Nobody can refute this truth about Christ's sole authority as the Revelation of God.

Perfect knowledge about God comes from Christ. Without the revelation of Jesus, all notions, all dogmas, all ideas about God remain erroneous and misrepresent the true nature of God.

Jesus alone is the truth and in Him comes the pure knowledge  about God the Father. Even the Pharisees were rebuked by Jesus about the errors the former had been believing. The Pharisees believed that the source of life is the scripture. Jesus told them that the same scripture had instructed the Pharisees about the Christ but the religious pundits refused to come and believed in Jesus as the source of eternal life.

Knowledge about God without acknowledging Christ's perfect revelation is dangerous. It only leads to pride and arrogance.

Humility marks the life of the man who received the blessing of revelation from Christ. The unworthy sinner who became recipient of God's immeasurable grace, now enjoys complete peace as God's true nature is revealed in his life.

 

New Covenant Worship

Christ's position as believer's Intercessor towards God the Father cannot be taken lightly. This is the heart of the gospel that provides unequal assurance of the risen Christ's complete abode in the lives of His brothers and sisters. It was the Father's intent of raising up Jesus from the dead in order to take the position as the Firstborn from among the dead. Jesus rose from the dead and now perpetually serves as our High Priest in God's tabernacle. 

 Our present propagation of this quasi-Judaism temple worship practice has no match with the new testament spiritual relationship that we enjoy with Christ. The temple worship practice of Judaism religion remains the most adopted form of expressing one's faith because the mainstream Christian religion has reverted to the old testament physical and verifiable act of worship. The formation of worship team and worship leaders is an old testament practice . In the past it was the Kohatites that were designated as worship leaders in the tabernacle ceremony of that elaborate temple celebration as Moses and Aaron were instructed.

The words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman as found in the gospel was: "Dear woman, the time is coming when you will worship the Father neither in this mountain nor in the Jerusalem. But you shall you shall worship Him in spirit and in truth, because such kind of worshiper the Father seeks.

 

 

Storms of Life

Only Jesus has the power to regulate all storms of life that come in the lives of all men. The past miracles done by Christ, particularly His action of rebuking the strong wind while they were on-board a small boat sailing at the lake. The disciples had turned into panic while the Master was sleeping peacefully. When the disciples had awaken Jesus, the Lord showed them His power over nature and immediately the storm subsided and the disciples were amazed. Jesus asked them saying: "Where is your faith?".

In our daily living, we will also encounter these storms of life. We will face troubles. Like those disciples we begin to panic and unable to call our living Lord Jesus for His authority over the storms of life. We forget His past miracles. He commanded the storm to be still. 

The storms of life are many. They caused people to get discourage. They come in the lives of all mankind. The living Christ is Lord over the storms of life. He had shown in the past His authority over nature. 

We must have faith in the undiminished power of Christ over unknown and countless storms of life that beset mankind. There is no one else who has the authority to regulate and even remove these storms of life save the Living Lord Jesus.

The disciples had awaken Jesus because of their desire to escape and abandon the boat. They only saw the huge waves ready to capsize their small and unreliable boat. They had feared for their lives. They forgot to place their faith at that moment on the One Who is called the Firstborn over all creation.