Jesus Walks on Stormy Water
Category Archives: Growth Articles
WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH
By Ian D’Souza
(Discourse with the Samaritan woman at the well)
(John 4:21-24) – “Jesus said to her, “Believe Me, woman, that a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. But a time is coming, and even now has arrived, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
This is a very powerful and revelatory text. It teaches us what is true worship and at the same time exposes what is false worship. Jesus is having a conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. The topic is worship. She seems blind and unaware of what true worship is all about. She thinks that true worship must be done in some special place – either on a mountain top or in the holy city of Jerusalem. But she was only revealing her ignorance in all this. Jesus exposed her ignorance completely so that it could be removed from her mind and replaced with the truth. He showed in effect, that she didn’t know WHO to worship, WHERE to worship nor HOW to worship. All spiritually blinded people fall into this category and hence worship wrongly. But let’s start at the beginning. Continue reading
Come Down From The Cross – Who?
By Ian D’Souza
The title suggests that this may be a Good Friday message. It is the crucifixion scene for sure and the words “come down from the cross” we know were spoken by the soldiers, pharisees and the crucified thieves to Jesus, mocking Him to come down, save Himself and them too. But, that is not what this message is about. There is someone else who was crucified on that day together with Jesus. That is the Christian believer. Paul says in Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Continue reading
AIN’T NO SUCH THING AS ‘CHRISTIAN YOGA’ |
AIN’T NO SUCH THING AS ‘CHRISTIAN YOGA’
compiled by Michael Jeshurun
“Christianity cannot be integrated with yoga and remain Christian. To think otherwise imperils the Christian truth and faith. As the managing editor of ‘Hinduism Today,’ Sannyasin Arumugaswami, remarks, ‘Hinduism is the soul of yoga ‘based as it is on Hindu Scripture and developed by Hindu sages. Yoga opens up new and more refined states of mind, and to understand them one needs to believe in and understand the Hindu way of looking at God. . . . A Christian trying to adapt these practices will likely disrupt their own Christian beliefs’.’ East is east, and west is west, and if Christianity is to remain Christian, ‘the twain’ should never be married. – Pastor Larry De Bruyn Continue reading
The Abortion Issue
By Ian D’Souza
The following is a reply I received from a friend to my Facebook post citing the sad case of an entire country (Ireland) voting for Abortion in May 2018.
Ian D’Souza, it’s ok to murder poultry animals? This should be a woman’s choice and we need to change our beliefs in the face of a growing world population. When the unborn is abnormal, it is better to abort it earlier on. It becomes easy for society to say do not abort but no one will help the mother with an abnormal child. That’s the reality. I believe we should keep aside our religious beliefs and understand nature and science better.
Hi _________,
Nice to have your interaction here. I know this issue of abortion is a hot-button issue globally. While I certainly respect your opinion on this matter, allow me to share why I see things differently. Your response addresses five specific areas with respect to abortion: (1) Abortion & the Animal-killing connection (2) Woman’s Choice (3) Answer to Population Growth (4) The Abnormal Child & (5) The Religious Connection. Continue reading
“Follow Your Heart” – The Alternative Gospel
By Ian D’Souza
It seems like everywhere you look, someone is urging you to “follow your heart”. TV, music, literature, internet-you name it. “Go with your gut.” “Trust your intuition.” “Do what’s right for you.” “Pursue your dreams.” “Believe in yourself.” It all amounts to pretty much the same thing:
“Follow your heart.” Anyone who faces an important decision can’t possibly go wrong, it seems, if only they’d just follow their heart. Inherent in this rhetoric is the instruction that the desires of the heart are the guide to fulfillment. Or, if you like something, then that’s your calling in life. “Follow your heart” is a creed embraced by billions of people. It’s a statement of faith in one of the great pop cultural myths of the Western world, a gospel proclaimed in many of our stories, movies, and songs.
It all seems very innocent and common sense-like and many have fallen prey to this advice. However, seen within the bigger picture, the unrelenting advice to “follow your heart” is part of our culture’s overarching perception of ‘the good life’: figure out what will make you happy, and pursue that. And whatever you do, don’t let anything or anyone (such as wows taken, financial obligations, stuffy old institutions, your own anatomy, religion, books, or logic) deter you. Continue reading
Eight Symptoms of False Teaching
By J. C. Ryle
Eight symptoms of false teaching was written by J. C. Ryle over one-hundred years ago, and is more than relevant for the church today.
1. There is an undeniable zeal in some teachers of error – their earnestness makes many people think they must be right.
2. There is a great appearance of learning and theological knowledge – many think that such clever and intellectual men must surely be safe to listen to.
3. There is a general tendency to completely free and independent thinking today – many like to prove their independence of judgment by believing the newest ideas, which are nothing but novelties.
4. There is a wide-spread desire to appear kind, loving, and open-minded – many seem half-ashamed to say that anybody can be wrong or is a false teacher.
5. There is always a portion of half-truth taught by modern false teachers – they are always using scriptural words and phrases, but with unscriptural meaning.
6. There is a public craving for a more sensational and entertaining worship – people are impatient with the more inward and invisible work of God within the hearts of men.
7. There is a superficial readiness all around to believe anyone who talks cleverly, lovingly and earnestly, forgetting that Satan often masquerades himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).
8. There is a wide-spread ignorance among professing Christians – every heretic who speaks well is surely believed, and anyone who doubts him is called narrow-minded and unloving.
All these are especially symptoms of our times. I challenge any honest and observant person to deny them. These tend to make the assaults of false doctrine today especially dangerous and make it even more important to say loudly, “Do not be carried away with strange doctrine!”
Does any one ask me, What is the best safeguard against false doctrine? – I answer in one word, ‘The Bible: the Bible regularly read, regularly prayed over, regularly studied.’ We must go back to the old prescription of our Master: ‘Search the Scriptures.’ (John 5:39) If we want a weapon to wield against the devices of Satan, there is nothing like ‘the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.’ But to wield it successfully, we must read it habitually, diligently, intelligently, and prayerfully.
This is a point on which, I fear, many fail. In an age of hurry and bustle, few read their Bibles as much as they should. More books perhaps are read than ever, but less of the one Book which makes man wise unto salvation.
Are Death and Life in the Power of the Tongue?
By Ian D’Souza
This scripture is an oft quoted one, more often out of context, incomplete and without proper investigation of the text. Almost every time I’ve come across this scripture, it has been used to show the cause and effect of things that happen not realizing the error which this can lead to.
To begin with, we need to read the complete segment of verses which form a connected-string-of-thought starting from verse 19 right up to verse 21. They read as follows: Continue reading
Answering Life’s Basic Questions
By Ian D’Souza
I remember as a child and then as a teenager asking the following questions in my subconscious mind over and over again. As far as I can remember, I could never find the correct answers from any of the classics or other materials (Reader’s Digest for example), that I frequently read. Neither were they adequately discussed or shared in school and college.
The three basic questions of life are: (1) Where did I come from? (2) Why am I here? (3) Where am I going? Yes, Darwin did try to provide the answers through his hypothesis of “Natural Selection” which is regarded as the main process that brings about Evolution. However, consider the following: Continue reading
Touch Not The Lord’s Anointed
By Ian D’Souza
Time and again I have had people mail me or reply to my social network posts saying that it was wrong on my part to be critical of Christian Leaders who are in some form of ministry / office or any other Christian service. They have almost always quoted the scripture “touch not the Lord’s anointed and do my prophets no harm” as the necessary scripture in support of this complaint, without realizing the context in which this statement was made by God and again later on by his servant David. To make things worse, this phrase has been abused and misused by many a tele-evangelist / stage preacher & other Christian ministers as a ruse to protect themselves when their errors become manifest or when they are cornered for lying, cheating, etc, thus instilling fear into the minds of gullible Christians who refuse to study God’s Word for themselves. To further compound the matter, should any mishap happen to the critic, it is conveniently attributed as God’s punishment for touching the “Lord’s anointed”. So such Christians become life-long supporters of these ministers who are generally in the “false teacher” or “false prophet” category. This support is not out of love for truth, but clearly out of a fear of Man! Continue reading
The Beacon 