Marbaniang, Domenic

From Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship Every attempt to impose the gospel by force, to run after people and proselytize them, to use our own resources to arrange the salvation of other people, is both futile and dangerous. It is futile, because it is wrong to cast pearls before swine, and dangerous, because it profanes the word of forgiveness, by causing those we fain would serve to sin against that which is holy. Worse still, we shall only meet with the blind rage of hardened and darkened hearts, and that will be useless and harmful. Our easy trafficking with the word of cheap grace simply bores the world to disgust, so that in the end it turns against those who try to force on it what it does not want. Thus a strict limit is placed upon the activities of the disciples, just as in Matt, x they are told to shake the dust off their feet where the word is refused a hearing. Their restless energy which refuses to recognize any limit to their activity, the zeal which refus...

How new shall this New Year be If everything will still be the same - A million children wrecked by hunger A million other torn by shame? How happy shall this New Year be With those haunting memories of pain Of women and children torn apart By men pretending to be vilely sane? How different will this New Year be If the world goes on as it does, If it wakes up another morning And is not an ounce different from what it was? We must celebrate this New Year, yes we must do; But how new will this New Year be unless we do something new? Yes, we must celebrate this New Year, yes we must do; But how new will this New Year be - we must make it new!

When situations look tight And wearisome seems the fight When giving up feels just alright Then we find rest and strength in God's unfailing Light! Thankful for a great 2013 -- no goodbyes for we'll carry it into a new year soon!

Published in REVIVE, Dec. 2013 Somebody has said it well, “It is not how you start the race, but how you end the race that wins you the prize.” There are many who start the race very well; there are only a few who become winners.  Paul specified, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it” (1Cor.9:24). In other words, God wants us to run with a single, determined focus – to obtain the prize. “To persist” means “to continue firmly in spite of difficulty , opposition , or failure .” To persist means to keep moving ahead in spite of wind, fire, and rain. To persist means to continue, to be constant, to keep pressing forward. To persist means to never stop. VALUE OF PERSISTENCE Persistence Brings Answers to Prayer The Bible always connects prayer with persistence. Jesus promised, “Ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.” In the original language, t...

The Levite and the priest were so concerned about church service that they left the wounded man unattended. The Good Samaritan gave all he had to save the man in need. Jesus wants us to know that a heartless man is a neighbor of nobody - a stranger to both God and man. But the Good Samaritan who might have never preached a sermon is the one whose story God Himself shares with us to change our hearts.

THE CROSS Where His body was broken to unite us with God He suffered the most extreme deprivation to grant us sufficiency in Himself He met a finite end to become the root of our infinite destiny He wore the perishable to cloth us with the imperishable He experienced the here to lead us into the beyond Here Plurality was reconciled with Unity Contingency found sufficiency in Necessity Finitude found completion in Infinity Change was absorbed into Immutability Immanence was introduced to Transcendence