Faith arise!

We worship God by saying "yes" to Him constantly in our hearts;

YES to who He is,

    to his plans and timing for my life,

to his will expressed in His word,

    yes to his plans for different nations.

Learning to say "I love You AND I trust You."

All God’s gifts are loving only to the degree that they lead us to God himself. That is what God’s love is: his commitment to do everything necessary (most painfully the death of his only Son) to enthrall us with what is most deeply and durably satisfying—namely, himself.  

                                                                                             John Piper

 
Anybody can quit except a person in love.

The only thing that will guard me from being entrapped by sin is being entranced by Jesus.

The other night we ended up discussing how to confront a believer who chooses cohabitation with their partner instead of marriage. A good conversation with a realization how uncommon it actually is to make an effort and raise the topic and with love remind a friend where God's blessing/judgement lies. In the end, we came up with a thought that the real problem for a believer who chooses to ignore God's instruction  might be the lacking passion for God. The situation where a person (unknowingly) has given up seeking to be satisfied by God. We've all been there. Then maybe the real intervention for the situation might be to remind the person of God's passionate love for us and the satisfying joy he gives us in Jesus.

John Piper has written a book called "When I don't desire God". The book is  readable online in PDF format. Piper argues that Western Christianity hasn't put much emphasis on the joy in God. By this joy he means the fruit of the Spirit kind of joy that is the sustaining strength of mercy, missions and martyrdom. In this book he discusses how to regain that joy by putting ourselves in the path of the Spirit's willingness to reveal Christ to us and strengthen our faith by studying the word and in prayer. Piper writes: "When delighting in God is the work of our lives, there will be an inner strength for ministries of love to the very end."

 

It's a privilege to be alive today. A fresh opportunity to learn to know the depth of His heart for me. It's such a privilege that He calls me to draw near today with the promise to draw near to me. To be the object of His never ending love. To be able to return His love by serving Him and the people He has made into his image. To call the lost to return to Him who has already reconciled everything to Himself on the cross. Thank you for TODAY.

   

Int. Holocaust remembrance day

Holocaust remembrance day will be commemorated all over Europe 27th January as part of pan-European campaign called learnfromhistory.eu that informs about holocaust and carries a mantle of speaking new life into the tree that we all come from but that has been cut off of our culture in many ways. The remembrance day is declared by both EU and UN. In today's Europe anti-Semitism is present just as many other forms of racism and we are in need of learning from the history.

Founding director of European coalition for Israel Tomas Sandell is conserned about a new extreme right-wing political group in European parliament called Identity, tradition and sovereignty. Especially alarming is the fact that the party is mixing search for "Christian" identity with racism like anti-Semitism. Maybe this is something one could pray into as a modern way to act against anti-Semitism.

but A LOT MORE forgiveness...

There is a lot of pain, but a lot more healing
There is a lot of hate, but a lot more loving
There is a lot of sin, but a lot more forgiveness
There is a lot of darkness, but a lot more light

There is an enemy that seeks to kill what it cant control
It twists and turns
Making mountains out of mere hills
but I will call on the Lord who is worthy of praise

I run to him and I am saved
by outrageous grace
thru my Jesus I can stand
song by Godfrey Birtill

We are not called to stand apart but to bring healing, truth and forgivess to broken world thru Jesus.I dont want to deny darkness and live in a bubble among my own people but look into darkness since we are called to darkness with our light. Some days it feels it might cost me everything...but he reminds me that there is "A LOT MORE forgiveness and A LOT MORE light" than anything that the enemy might come up with. Isnt that quite something?

Forgiveness on the cross is concrete. On the cross you see no good agendas, no ethical programs or peace talks but you see someone already paying the price. It is forgiveness not based on us being humane or idealistic, trying our best or being reasonable. Someone is paying the price.

A journalist commented that the West potrayed Saddam's execution as "redemptive violence". There is redemptive violence indeed, but ...the one dying is not Saddam.

Incarnation

Our faith has at its heart incarnation and a gospel which centered on three facts as to what happened to Christ's BODY in this world. If this is the emphasis God puts on INCARNATION of his love, how much more should we incarnate (give it our hands and feet) our faith both on personal and on society level?

Family gathering

Yesterday a group of people who used to form a national youth prayer movement, now formed into fellowship extended by some new friends, had a pre Christmas celebration. Although it was a shared experience that it felt more like New Year's eve. It is funny how Jesus sometimes gives us this expectation that something will be transformed. Anyways we experienced a warm atmosphere of fellowship, where everyone was able to share and many speeches were given in an relaxed relational way, which I really enjoyed.

One thing shared especially caught my attention. Venla shared that we should not plan our lives too much ahead of time, since God's plans are always higher than ours. And she is one to say this: by the age of 70 she has had seven different professions by which she has served the Lord throughout the world and you can imagine she never imagined this in her youth!

Another theme that came up was connected to New Year's eve theme. Jose reminded us of the importance of laying everything down before God from time to time. This means respecting Him who first gave us everything by giving it all back to him so that he can use it for his glory.

   

The core

 

Sometimes I wonder about my life that has taken me to many people: new agers, politicians, native people, muslims, humanists, soldiers, biker gangs and CEOs, artists and nomads. I embrace diversity, cause I see something of the Creator in everything. I long to see the Spirit manifested in everyone in particular way. My question is: How can I build bridges with different people seeking their way to their Redeemer. In the end only two questions seem important to all of us: WHO is Jesus & what is MEANS to know Him?

   

Father, where are you?

One of the most dynamic Kingdom stories I've heard this autumn is to be read here (in Finnish unfortunately!). Friend of mine Mari from Turku had a propting of the Spirit to go and sit in front of the Finnish parliament building on the day when the parliament had an election on the law about fertility treatment of gay couples and single moms. She carried a sign saying: "Father, where are you?" Reading her story it is easy to see that her being there was a divine appointment. Many people reacted to her presence by starting to share about their relationship to their own father, about the role of the father in Finnish family and society. Her message even touched a few members of parliament, who had commented the message inside the building, and the next day Mari was invited to have coffee with some representatives of the Christian Democratic party.