Una vida llena de dudas no es una vida contenta. Pero, somos las personas de Dios y tenemos muchas promesas en Cristo. Por eso, no necesitamos dudar. Pero, a veces, incluso los niños de Dios, tienen dudas. Es normal pero la buena noticia es que cuando empezamos a crecer en la fe estos momentos en dudas existen menos frecuentemente. Dios nos quiere fortalecer y construirnos, pero nuestras propias dudas puede entorpecer nuestro crecimiento. Dios quiere bendecirnos y responder a nuestras oraciones, pero necesitamos orar sin dudas.

There is a false idea out there today, so prevalent, that I am almost certain you have heard more times than you could possibly count. Here is the statement, something along these lines:

“Hey Christian! If you do X,Y, or Z….Or, you don’t do X,Y or Z…then you are going to stand before God on judgment day and you are not going to make it to heaven”

This is false. Plain and simple. It’s inaccurate, misleading, and damaging for multiple different reasons. Allow me to very briefly explain why these kinds of statements are absolutely, positively, false doctrine.

A life full of doubt is not a very happy life. We are the people of God and have many amazing promises in Christ, so we really have no reason to doubt. And yet we do. Some of us toil in anxious fits when in reality, we have no reason to. But rest assured, because this is common. Sometimes we just find ourselves in moments of doubt.

But there is good news! Generally speaking, as we begin to grow in the faith, and our walk with God, these moments of doubt and worry will happen less and less. God wants to strengthen and build us, but our doubts can often get in the way of this. God wants to bless us and answer our prayers but we need to keep our doubts in check.

It has been said time and time again “It’s not about what you know, it’s about WHO you know”. People spend their entire lives trying to network and fit in and establish contacts with higher positions in society than themselves, all in the hopes of success. For many, life is about rubbing shoulders with people of power. (celebrities, politicians, etc.) Many people want to make friends with people who will propel them along in life. Proverbs 19:6 tells us “Many seek the favor of a generous man, and everyone is a friend to a man who gives gifts.” Everyone wants to be friends with someone that they can gain something from.

Despues que Jesus murio en la cruz, resucito, y ascendió al Padre, los creyentes en todas las partes del mundo que todavia estan aqui, y estan dispersos. Ahora esperamos por Jesus regresar, pero mientras tanto, ¿debemos que pasamos nuestras vidas? Hay muchos libros que existen acerca de sobreviva, peron son para las personas sobrevivir las catástrofes naturales, perderse en el desierto, incluso un accopalcypse zombie. Pues, ¿hay un libro para los ninos de Dios para sobrevivir en un hogar que no es nuestros? para los ninos que estan esperan por Jesus a volver? Toda de la Biblia, claro, pero mas especifico, el libro de Santiago.Este libro es un guía de supervivencia para los creyentes. Si vamos a sobrevivir en este mundo hasta que Dios nos reúna, necesitamos:

La Paciencia

After Jesus died on the cross, rose again, and ascended to the Father, believers in all parts of the world are now scattered. Now we are waiting for the return of Christ, but while we are waiting, what should we be doing with our lives? Many books exist already about survival, but they are written for people to survive natural disasters, being lost in the wilderness, or even a zombie apocalypse. But is there a book written for the children of God to survive in a home that is not ours? For those of us who are waiting for Jesus to return the Bible? Yes. Of course, we have the Bible, which is a lamp unto our feet as Christians, but even more specifically, I want to bring to your attention the book of James. The book of James is a survival guide for Christians. We may feel like the world is against us sometimes because it is. That means we need to use the wisdom from God’s word to survive. If we are going to survive in this world until God gathers us home we need to pay close attention to the lessons that the book of James teaches us.

One of the most enjoyable parts about reading books and stories is character development. We have all seen it, and expect it. Little Tommy is afraid of the thing, and then throughout the story has to face the thing, until the thing no longer is a big deal, and he learns a lot about himself by the end of the story. Jonah, as usual, continues to be the opposite of everything he should be.

“Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown”. This was the message of Jonah when he finally delivered the message God gave him. Maybe the message included more, maybe not, the Bible does not tell us. However, given Jonah’s typical attitude and lack of care for the people of Nineveh, I think it’s very likely those few words were the entirety of his message.

Here in Matthew 3 we have the religious leaders showing up to interrogate John the Baptist. Here in the passage, we see he is teaching and baptizing people, telling them to repent because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He was preparing people for Christ’s ministry. People were getting saved and were committing themselves to walk in newness of life. John was preaching what Roman’s 6:1-14 reaffirms.

I believe that the Christian Church, at least here in the United States, has numerous problems it needs to address in order to be healthy and reproduce. Today I will be sharing just one of the reasons I believe that the Church is not what it should be.

I think the Church could do a much better job with inclusivity. Now when I say that I am sure many people will already jump to conclusions, but I can assure you that nobody else sees this the way I do. What you think I am talking about is probably not what I am actually trying to talk about. I always seem to come at things from a different angle that does not appear to be the norm. Honestly, though, nobody is talking about this. So let’s start by defining what the word inclusivity even means.

Have you ever been arguing and fighting with your wife or husband, close friend or family member and eventually reach a point where you just want to start over? Do you ever reach a point where you wish you could take back everything that has been said or done by simply pressing a reset button? A good reset, second and forgiveness are hard to pass up when the are offered to us.

Let’s face it, we all mess up from time to time. Sometimes we do something wrong at work, wrong a friend or wrong someone within our own household. As bad as this feels, it sure does feel great to get a second chance and move on from your errors. This is exactly what happens to Jonah starting in chapter 3. God comes to him a second time and allows him to push the reset button, and try again. 

 People often say that soulwinning is no longer an effective way of getting people saved or doing outreach. They say soulwinning is “outdated” or that it simply “does not work in our culture today.” Let me be straight up with you. If there was a more effective way of getting people saved than just approaching their door uninvited and dealing with the awkwardness that brings, I would jump on that opportunity in a heartbeat.

We all have a sincere and human desire to be a part of the right tribe. From the sports teams we follow and root for, to the brands we choose to wear on our bodies, we are constantly making decisions on what and who to endorse because of some particular reason or another.

The Bible gives us the facts that Jesus was killed on a cross, and that He rose again the third day. With this in mind, many find themselves wondering where Jesus was for during the cross and his resurrection. I am going to lay out for you what I believe, and why I believe it. Let me, however, begin by stating the Bible is sometimes not as black and white as people try to make it. Sometimes, you put together a belief based on what you see in scripture, and you present that idea in a logical manner, but ultimately it is going to be up to you to come to your own conclusion. Scripture does not always spell things out for us as clearly as we would often hope for.

Let us look at the part in Jonah that everyone knows, but approach it with some extra care for what we are reading. Today you will see that this chapter also foreshadows the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

I believe that many people describe legalism incorrectly. A lot of people will assign the label of legalism to someone who is adding human merit to one’s salvation. I do not believe this is accurate, that isn’t really legalism in my opinion, that is simply a works based salvation. In fact, ironically, I think using this as a definition for legalism is actually a tactic used by people who are legalistic.

Did Jesus teach Nicodemus that baptism is required to be saved? The Belief that a person must be baptized in order to be saved is called “Baptismal Regeneration”.

What is worse than being exposed as a phony and fraud? Well, possibly waving back at someone in public who wasn’t actually waving at you, but still, being seen as a fake is pretty awful. We have seen that Jonah is sort of a fake. He sure claims the title of “Man of God” but his actions do not support this. We’ve seen so far that Jonah doesn’t care about the well being or the souls of others. While the mariners were doing their best to protect their lives, Jonah was asleep at the bottom of the ship.

What are Christians like? Depending on who you ask this question, you are probably going to get different answers. Some may say these people are “compassionate, loving, kind” and some may say “terrible, hypocritical, rude”. Why the mixed review? Well, it all depends on what kind of interactions people have had with Christians.

So far in our Bible study through the book Jonah we have not seen anything that really redeems this guy. He is asleep at the wheel. His lack of concern is damaging not only his life, but the life of those around him. Last time we saw that he does not care about others, now we will be looking at the prayer life of Jonah. We will see that he cares about praying just about as much as he cares about others.