I have hunted long and hard upon the earth’s surface, searching for just one missing piece in all our lives – it’s called joy. I just can’t locate it. There is something I have learned instead; life is complicated. Each day has enough to wipe away even those little joyful moments we think we have. Amazing enough, every time I open the New Testament, I see the good Lord lending out His hand of invitation towards His people through the words, “Rejoice in the Lord always, I say again, rejoice!” (Phil 4:4). There is a fine line between that which we know as happiness and joy itself. Happiness is more of a momentary good mood because of some favourable circumstances around one’s life. That sort of mood, of course, is bound to change as much as the wind of circumstances also shifts and turns with seasons. On the other hand, joy is a combination of happiness, peace, and hope deep within one’s soul. It is a work of the Spirit of Christ Himself, therefore, it doesn’t easily fade, regardless of

And they clothed Him with purple; and they twisted a crown of thorns, put it on His head, and began to salute Him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” Mark 15:17-18 An inauguration is a ceremony by which a president is ordained into office, while a coronation is the same process of installing or crowning a king onto his throne. In our text above, we see these words towards Jesus, “hail King of the Jews!” He was even given a crown and a purple robe that only kings were worthy to wear. As we know, this Jesus, was and is indeed a King – a King of Kings that is worthy to wear as many crowns. And it was only fitting that the soldiers gave Him homage and honour – for thus what He deserved.  However, we observe something terrible about the Romans’ coronation of King Jesus; as serious as they were, they didn’t mean it. They were not by any means honouring our Lord, on the contrary, it was all mockery and blasphemy.  Let’s apply it to our lives then. We all love Jesus, right? And we indeed take great com

We must begin with a question; what is the purpose of preaching? What are we trying to archive with our preaching endeavors? To get this question wrong is the basis of bad preaching that we witness all around us. There are only two reasons for the existence of preachers; the salvation of sinners and the sanctification of saints . Let’s elaborate; Salvation of sinners – God’s primal desire for all of us is not healing and prosperity but it is salvation (1 Tim 2:4). And that salvation is a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit when He changes a God-hating sinner into a Christ-loving saint. The reason why preachers lose this plot it’s because they assume that everyone within the sound of their voices is born again. They believe that to be saved is just to repeat the prayer of salvation after the minister and…congrats. Well, the problem with this is that many do pray that salvation prayer with their lips while their hearts are away. As evident by the reality that a great many – especially

A church is not so much a building as we might imagine, but it is simply a group of believers gathered to fellowship; anywhere, anytime. It’s called the local church. Every believer, no matter where they are, must be involved with the community of believers in that area. It is my confident opinion that there is nothing as important as the presence of the local church in the context of any society. The greatest work that God is doing now, is inside and through His church. Yet – as we shall see in our study today – the Lord deals with each church differently, as much as each has its own strengths and weaknesses. In today’s study, we are zooming in on the local gathering of the believers in the great city of Ephesus, as written in the book of Revelation 2:1-6. Who knows, perhaps we might learn something that is applicable to the churches that we serve in . This is what can be observed: “ You cannot bear those who are evil” (verse 2) I am amazed that the Lord was and is proud of a church t

We are all familiar with Paul the good Apostle, fruitful as his ministry was, little is known about the marvelous company of faithful believers who traveled with him in his evangelist work. “Behind every great man, is a great team”, certainly, that is true of Saul of Tarsus.  I have selected a few individuals from his shadows to the spotlight of our study today. The end goal, of course, is encouragement and godly refreshment in our own Christian walk through the lives of these men and women; strengths and weaknesses included. Titus and Timothy, the sons of faith What’s better than to begin with these two?  Titus and Timothy; the young and fearful, yet beloved “true sons of faith” as the Apostle called them. Nothing challenges my faith more than the fact that Paul had no doubt, I mean none whatsoever that these young men were true believers. In a world where young people in the church today are consumed with foolishness, Timothy and Titus are but a good rebuke. Their lives still stand