I wanna be a rock star

 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. John 8:31,32
Many teaching we get in these two verses. I will look in this: "If you hold to my teaching..."
To believe in Jesus is more than to  know about Him. It is more than to know what He is able to do. To trust in Him means  to abandon our beliefs, even when we "believe" they may be came from God.
Many times we were taught about God but few of us look at Bible carefully to know if we were taught right, we use to believe because we use to believe!
When Jesus calls us, He says come and trust in me like I'm, even (and I dare to say, frequently) this believe means to abandon our on view point about Him. How many time we use to question our on faith? We have our faith and we always think be right.
John 7:27 shows us people confused about if Jesus was or not The Messiah, and why? Because a common sense in the time, used to say that when The Messiah come, nobody would know where He would come from and Jesus, even showing great miracles, amazing teachings and uncountable signs, was knowing by everybody, His birth city, parents and family making Him not fulfill 'the common sense'.
what it means, Patricia, you can ask me?
It means, dearest reader,  if we day by day, do not seek God, and obey His word more than religion and common sense, we are going to lost the real Jesus, and what is more important, salvation! Some times, we see Jesus in people that we don't think be "someone of God" and this kind of thought block us to listen God. We use to listen and read "that preachers we like" and few time we dare to question them, we just listen! Jesus said: If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. John 8:31,32. 
To hold His teaching many (many) times, will means be against common sense, religious traditions and culture.
We are near of a big american commemoration, Halloween. Some churches have bringing it into its temples cultivating witches, monsters and many kinds of bad stuff, just because 'it is our culture'. Brazil has many similar things, what people call folklore and I call blindness.
But, what matter is, that we have to be free and this freedom only come from obey Jesus and His word. To keep our salvation we have to stay living Matthew 5. Loving those who persecute us. Forgiving those who hurt us. Helping the needy.

I have  seen the church of 21 century. This is the most rich church of all time, and to our shame and sadness, the 21 century church is that has less impact and influence in the society. How is it possible? Maybe it is possible because people and leaders of this church, look for become similar to the world. Our clothes, life style, language, and habits in almost nothing differs of the world. We have the same desires, we have the same plans, we look for our own will, we look for be known by our greatness, our diploma in big universities. The 'dream' of big part of people that are called christian, is the same dream of those who aren't.
It is rare listen young from our churches say that to dream in become missionary, pastor our be known for forgive, love and live like Jesus. They want to be celebrity! If be pastor, they want be at TV, our to be a "gospel rock' star".  Resigns, altruism aren't words of our vocabulary!
Church, we have to wake up. We have to come back to Jesus life style. More of Him and less (too much less) of us.
To be a real christian, we need fast, turn away. We have to review our concepts before it guides us to too far that will be impossible to come back.
Come back church, come back!

Pati Nanni

Focus on Being Ready

The year 2012 is upon us.

I plan  to celebrate several milestones this year. One of those milestones is this very devotional which happens to be my 100th weekly message since January 2010.

There is another event which will take place this year that has captivated the imaginations of a great many people.

2012 also happens to be the year that the Mayan calendar comes to an end.

Some take this to be a sign of the end of the world.

Some of the television networks I normally count on for "historical" documentaries have begun the new year with a lineup of programming forecasting nothing but gloom and doom for 2012.

Personally, I do not worry about the Mayan calendar running out for a number of reasons which I will not devote any time to in this devotional.

As far as the documentaries I have seen thus far that discuss the end of the world, well I do not put a great deal of stock in them.

They mostly try to capitalize on people’s fear in order to garner bigger ratings and they are largely based on speculation.

Personally, I suspect that there are a great many people that are apprehensive about the end of the world as we know it.

Many of them will even cite scripture, albeit erroneously, in order to lend substance to their fears and the fears of others.

Just last year, a religious leader made the news with his prediction of the day in which the world would end in 2011.

Many of his followers sold all their possessions and awaited the hour.

When the hour came and then went without incident, a supposed miscalculation was to blame.

To be honest, this is not the first time someone has erroneously tried to determine when the end would come and it will certainly not be the last.

The simple truth is that only God knows when this will occur.

Mark 13:32-33 (NET) - But as for the day or hour no one knows it - neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son - except the Father. Watch out! Stay alert! For you do not know when the time will come.

It bothers me when somebody makes a prediction as to the exact date on which the end will come.

I find any such predictions more than a bit presumptuous because the individual making that exact prediction is implying that he has some special insight that even Jesus does not have.

The end could occur this year, or the next or even beyond.

The simple truth is that we as human beings have no way of knowing.

That is why we experience so much fear and apprehension,

After all, it is a natural, human reaction to fear the unknown.

Yet those fears can be put to rest,

The question really should not revolve around when will the end come.

The better question to ask is: If the end were to happen soon, would I be ready?

Exactly how can one be ready?

The very best place to begin is to make absolutely certain that you have put your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and then seek to do His will every day.

Jesus was asked what commandment was the most important.

He answered that we were to love God with all our being and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

If we let our days revolve around these things, we will be ready and then the end will take care of itself... whenever it happens to arrive.


Blessings,
Jim Pokorny
The Other Brother Jim
http://otherbrotherjim.blogspot.com/