From the Heart by B.Demaere

Love one another with brotherly affection.  Outdo one another in showing honor.  (Romans 12:10) (ESV) WOW! That’s a new concept…Competing, outdoing one another in love.   We all like to compete, we see it in churches all the time.   We see it in children as well.   Competing for attention, but how about competing in loving our pastor more or anybody else for that matter. Here are verse 9,10 in the Message translation (A translation in English is the same verse said in a different way) Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it.   Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good.   Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. This says it differently…play second fiddle means put the other before you.   Play to accompany, to uplift. In other words, God expects us to excel in love and get better and better at it.   We got to outdo, outperform one another in love.   Not comparing to the other bu...

  Our Heart’s Cry (Isaiah 63:7 to 64:12) First, let’s start at the end of this long text.   We will understand better the heart of God toward his people.   In this case, it is Israel.   But for New Testament people, it is the born-again Christians who are God’s chosen people.   God’s people have throughout history been known to rebel at times. Isaiah 64:11-12 “Our holy and beautiful house where our fathers praised you, has been burned by fire, and all our pleasant places have become ruins. Will you restrain yourself at these things, O Lord?   Will you keep silent, and afflict us so terribly?” We can see clearly that the prophet Isaiah is concerned with the house of worship, in our world today it would be our church or the Church of Born-again Christians. Now at the very beginning of this passage in Isaiah 63:7, he wants to remind God’s people of the goodness of the Lord and our motivation for praising him.   Have we forgotten how good he is and...

    These are the Last Days   God has always been in the News.  He is God and he is in everything that concerns men and women, children.  He sees everything that is going on and I am sure there is a whole lot of head shaking in heaven.  God is not surprised he knew it all along.  We might be surprised, but everything is working out as he planned long time ago.  The nations are being lined up just like the planet would be.  There will be a New earth and a New heaven and Jesus Christ is coming back to take his true followers back home.  Nothing will be missing!  Everything will work out like a fine-tuned clock.   But what about you? There is certainly hope for you if you do exactly what God wants everyone to do.  That is so simple: Believe in his Only Son Jesus Christ. It sounds so simple and yet to many people it is so difficult because they find excuses not to love him. Jesus is the One who loved us first by dyin...

  Very early the next morning, the king hurried out to the lions’ den. When he got there, he called out in anguish, “Daniel, servant of the living God! Was your God, whom you worship continually, able to rescue you from the lions?”  Daniel answered, “Long live the king!  My God sent his angel to shut the lions’ mouths so that they would not hurt me, for I have been found innocent in his sight. And I have not wronged you, Your Majesty.” The king was overjoyed and ordered that Daniel be lifted out from the den. Not a scratch was found on him because he had trusted in his God. Daniel thrown to the lions, his friends had been thrown in the furnace earlier but he missed that opportunity. Now he was thrown to the hungry lions and clearly God spared him just as much as he had saved his  friends from the fire. Just like that and almost overnight everything changed in that country. A change of leadership and a few jealous administrators and that was all that it took. Daniel w...

Once you were dead, doomed forever because of your many sins.  You used to live just like the rest of the world, full of sin, obeying Satan, the mighty prince of the power of the air.  He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.  All of us used to live that way, following the passions and desires of our evil nature.  We were born with an evil nature, and we were under God's anger just like everyone else. But God is so rich in mercy, and loved us so very much, that even while we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead.(It is only by God's favor that you have been saved).  For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and we are seated with him in the heavenly realms---all because we are one with Christ Jesus.  And so God can always point to us as examples of the incredible wealth of his favor and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us through Christ Jesus. That is actua...