Word of the Week

Prayer to our spiritual life is like water to our physical body. With the right attitude, prayer can keep your spirit refreshed as water quenches your physical thirst. Prayer is exceptionally important in our relationship with the Lord. All over the internet we are bombarded with countless teachings on how to pray. Yet, our best teacher on this subject is Jesus. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus shares effective principles relating to prayer. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus spoke about two men that entered the temple to pray. One, a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee prayed: "God I thank you that I am not like other people, robbers, evildoers, adulterers - or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get." But the tax collector stood at a distance. He wouldn't even look up to heaven but beat his breast and said, "God have mercy on me a sinner." Then Jesus said, "I tell you that this man, rather than the other w...

When I was living with my parents, we had an outside sink. It was a square concrete structure with a tap hanging over it. I remembered a time when the tap was leaking, drip, drip, drip, one drop of water at a time. After a while, that one-drop of water cracked the concrete. The top layer of the floor in the sink was gone. And as I read Jesus's parable in Luke 18 about the persistent widow, I remembered my parents’ old sink. A drop of water would seem ineffective against concrete, but continuous drops over a period of time was detrimental to the concrete surface. And same effect can be achieved with persistent prayer. Prayer is a direct line to the throne of Grace, and there are Biblical principles that can boost our prayer life. One of them is persistence.  The widow in Jesus's parable was a vulnerable and helpless woman because she had no family to uphold her cause. Her need for justice had become her daily drive. she did not allow the unrighteousness of the judge, his lack ...

I have heard this saying: “Believe and you receive; doubt and do without” . This saying resonates around faith. But what exactly is faith? And where does faith come from? As the Scripture says: “Faith is the substance of the things we hoped for and the evidence of things not seen, and faith comes by hearing the word of God” . The Lord gave each of us a measure of faith which we use to believe in Jesus Christ. Yet, this measure is only a seed that must be sowed and nurtured to produce fruit. This can be accomplished by believing the Word and studying it. Faith is a currency in God's kingdom. Whatever we desire that fits in with the will of God for our lives, can be acquired by faith. Nonetheless, this whole thing about faith can become so difficult at times. People always say "just have faith in God," a statement that seems like a mere religious statement. Telling someone to have faith in God when they are undergoing a painful situation may not help, no matter how relig...

There are prayers we all have made at some phase in life where we ask God how and why. The prophet Habakkuk shared his prayers when he cried out: "How long, LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?" (Habakkuk 1:1-3). Life has a way of casting us into a sea of pain that forces these Habakkuk-type prayers. Sometimes I find myself asking the Lord if he really cares about my pain and the injustice I face. And frankly, deep within my heart, I know He cares about everything that pertains to my life and wellbeing. Yet, that's what pain does when we lack alternate options for relief. When we find ourselves in these circumstances, it requires faith and trust to stand in confidence that the Lord is listening, and He will act, even though the circumstances make such beliefs difficult to embrace. Habakkuk was exposed to violence and injustice in his environment, and his last hope was the Lord. Yet, it s...

When you hear the word fight, what first comes to mind? Perhaps, to get on the defence, right? No one wants to lose a fight, and fights can be brutal, bloody, deadly, and may result in injuries or even death. Yet, this is the word the Apostle Paul used in his first letter to Timothy. He begins 1 Timothy 6:11 by saying: But you, man of God, flee from all this (lack of contentment and the love of money that he mentioned in the earlier verses), and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. FIGHT the good FIGHT of "the Faith." This type of fight Paul is speaking about is the “self-discipline” fight. It is the fight that protects us from falling into temptation and leading us down a path of ruin and destruction. It is the fight that means, at the end, we will be joyful with all the bruises and punches we received along the way. If you ask an athlete about his/her training process, he/she may explain it as a battle. Physical training has its mental a...