The Meaning of Yahweh?

Where Did The Word Jehovah Or Yahweh Come From?

Question : What does YAHWEH means?

Answer : The ancient Hebrew language that the Hebrew Scriptures were written in did not have vowels. In the original Hebrew, God’s name is given as "YHWH." This is known as the tetragrammaton. Because of the lack of vowels, Bible scholars debate how the tetragrammaton “YHWH” was pronounced. Instead, when reading, they substituted the actual tetragrammaton (which is only the consonants of the Divine Name “YHWH” since Hebrew is not usually written with vowels included) with the word Adonai (Lord). Even in the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Old Testament) the translators substituted Kurios (Lord) for the Divine Name. Eventually the vowels from Adonai (“Lord”) or Elohim (“God”) found their way into the consonants YHWH, thus forming “YaHWeH.” But this does not mean that was how God’s Name was originally pronounced.

Some have used these four initials "YHWH" to support their claim that God’s name is Yahweh or (Jehovah) by adding vowels to these four initials, but this is incorrect. The Hebrew alphabet contains no vowels and so to make them pronounceable translators artificially inserted some to form Jehovah or Yahweh. "Yahweh" is what is called a "tetragrammaton," meaning? It is not a name, but simply a collection of letters. It is "JHWH" and it is believed to be the name of God - but because the Jewish Scribe who are copiers of Scripture felt that the name of God was so special, and so powerful, that no one could truly use God's name casually during the intertestmental period of Israel, around 500 BC, the Jews became very concerned with not blaspheming the name of the Lord or accidentally taking the name of God in vain (Leviticus 24:16; Exo 20:7), so they never used it except for one day each year on Yom Kippur when they spoke it 7 times in a Temple ceremony called Yom Kippur (Lev 16:1-34), the Day of Atonement after which they were never allowed to write it down, so they used "JHWH" as God's name without vowels. So when they wrote His name they used 4 initials to represent it. So rather than saying the name 'Yahweh', they would say Elohim instead, which is the Hebrew word for god. However, this did not solve the problem of what to do when one came across the name Yahweh during the reading of the Scriptures.

The Jews decided that when they came to the name “YHWH” they would say the Hebrew word adonay, which means “Lord.” To remind the reader to say “adonay,” and to maintain the presence of the intended word “YHWH,” they assigned the vowels of “adonay” into the consonants of “YHWH.” However, it was never done with an intention for this form be read aloud.

During the Middle Ages often dated from a.d. 476 to 1453. scholars began to read the consonants of “YHWH” with the vowels of “adonay,” which resulted in the word “Jehovah,” an artificial word bearing no relation to the name of the God of Israel in Biblical times. “Jehovah” is actually a much later (probably 16th century) variant in Latin and the Germans were the first to make this transfer and wrote in the Scripture the coined word Jehovah instead of Yehowah since j’s and w’s are pronounced as y’s and v’s. This vowel combination is composed of the abbreviated forms of the imperfect, the participle, and the perfect of the Hebrew being verb (English “is”) - thus the meaning of Jehovah could be said to be "he who will be, is, and has been."

They were translated into English as JHVH by scholars. The King James translators used LORD, all in caps, where ever the initials "YHWH" appeared.

Some Scriptures translate the term as "adonai" or "elohim" ["el" is the old hebrew for God - in fact, any name with "el" in it has a connection with God.] Because of the above Jewish belief we have seen above, it was forbidden to write the name of God at all in the Biblical Old Testament period, and it could only be spoken once per year on Yom Kippur after the people had been cleansed from their sins. When the Temple was destroyed around 70 AD, the Yom Kippur ritual was changed and God’s name was not spoken again. Scholars roughly say that the way it was was spoken was eventually lost to the memory of man in about 300 AD.

So we cannot know for sure the original pronunciation through which the Israelites called the name of God. YHWH (or JHVH) are the four initials Hebrew scribes used instead to stand for the name of God. “I am who I am” is not His name, but a declaration God made to Moses in describing his awesomeness to be all sufficiency to everyone who believes Him in every situation that arise. (In Hebrew it’s “Hayah aser hayah”.) He didn’t speak His name, but said, “I am who I am. Thus shall you say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:14). God was conveying through Moses to the people of Israel that He is self-existent and self-sufficient God of the whole universe whose very reason of existence is in Himself and not outside of Him or based on someone else.

When God says "I AM” he is speaking his name. In the Hebrew language that this verse was written in, the letters are yod, he, vav, he, from which we get YHWH. These four letters were very loosely transliterated into the English ‘Jehovah.’ However, there is no ‘j’ sound in the Hebrew. So, people say a better way of expressing accurately the name of God in English would be Yahweh.

Actually it was somewhere during the Middle ages it was determined that in the Hebrew language the four initials are pronounced Yodh, He, Waw, and He. Because of this some say Yahweh is more accurate. But the fact of the matter is that no one alive today knows God’s actual name.

The times that the name Yahweh appears in Genesis, it does not appear in isolation, rather it appears along with another name of God. It is not until Exodus that the name “Yahweh” appears in isolation. The statement in Ex. 6:3 can be understood clearly as a intentional way in which Moses the writer has expressed a clear point in emphasis. Moses has written the first five books of the Old Testament might have intentionally done this to make people understand that the God who is seen from the beginning as the Almighty Creator and self-sustaining God, is the same God who has promised His very presence to them always to guide them and keep them under His shepherding care personally. I mean Moses might have emphasized his readers that they are not different gods in Genesis and Exodus but the same God who is very present help in the time of their need.

Today in our New Testament times, Jesus is the name above all names (Phil. 2:9-11). Praise the Lord!

Will Our Faith Kill Our Sinful Nature And Progressively Help Us Stop Committing Any Sin?

Does The Gospel Promise A Sin Free Life Instantly After Becoming A Believer?

Question : "Faith in Christ kills the sinful nature of our flesh and births the righteous nature of the spirit of Christ in our life, and by His Spirit we live righteous and stop committing any sin. If you are born again in Christ you stop committing Sin. If you are continuing to commit sin then you are not born again. That is the truth of the Gospel of Christ and everything else is a lie of Satan." Is the above statement true?

Answer : What do you say about this Brother : "18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. 19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. 20 Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me." (Rom 8:18-20). Here apostle Paul is saying that he is sinning and even cannot stop it in his own strength. Was he saved according to what you believe?

Apostle John said, "8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (1 John 1:8). In other words if we say that we never sin after we have become a believer, we deceive ourselves. We all sin in some way or the other in our hidden attitudes, thoughts and actions to some degree even after we are born again, but God in His infinite mercies forgives it all when we confess it to Him and gives grace to overcome it progressively more and more as we humble ourselves as a sinner in need of deliverance (1 John 1:7, 9; James 4:6-10). God cleanses us and makes us overcomers from all ungodly attitudes that is hidden in our soul once we realize our need for Him (Psa 19:12-13). So all saints are not sin-free but all are grace-empowered to be overcomers (Rom 6:14). The term overcomers are used for those who believe Jesus' victory over sin and declare it as their victory by faith (1 John 5:5).

There is a difference between saints who sin and sinners who sin, saints cannot continue to sin without being convicted by the Holy Spirit who is the seed of God dwelling within them, and also if they continue in it in spite of God's warning signal, they will be chastised by God even to death sometimes (1 John 3:9; Heb 12:6; 1 Cor 11:28-32), the ungodly sinner will have no conviction as their conscience will have already been darkened in their unregenerate condition by their repeated resistance against the conviction of the conscience that God has given within all human beings (Eph 4:18; Rom 1:21; 2:15). All saints who choose to co-operate with God are promised a overcoming life, but not a sinless life (Rev 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21). The only human who ever lived a sinless life from birth to death as a human is the Son of God Jesus Christ (2 Cor 5:21). We as God's children can live a blessed overcoming life as we are being transformed from the fleshly character of our forefather Adam to the character of our Heavenly Father in the Last Adam Jesus Christ in whom we have been born newly to live as a new race of people and grow spiritually powerful over sin, sickness and death from "glory to glory" (2 Cor 3:17-18; 1 Cor 15:47, 49).

Yes we are born again in our spirit within a day in a moment from above, by our faith, and the new nature of Christ becomes our inheritance as God's children in an instant within our spirit (2 Cor 6:2; 5:17; John 3:8), but we are transformed by faith for a lifetime through the work of the Holy Spirit by our obedience to God and His command in our day to day lives (Heb 10:14; Acts 15:9; 1 Peter 1:22). Our spirit man is born again in the likeness of Christ and needs no improvement in character except to increase in the power to rule over the soul which is the grace of Jesus we all acquire by growing in humility towards God (Eph 4:24; Titus 3:15; Philemon 25). Spiritual formation of the inner man to live by the power of the Spirit takes a lifetime of co-operation with God and this is a process that cannot be self-driven by human effort at all, for every Christian it is a Spirit-driven process of forming a natural dependence on God to help them be overcomer by His grace through receiving it in acknowledging one's sinfulness in humility, and by faith accepting the power of God's invincibility over sin (2 Cor 15:10). Paul the Apostle, who perhaps understood grace as none other, remarks on his own efforts with Christ's strength which overcame all spiritual obstacles, he did it through a co-operation and willingness within him to live as overcomer : "By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me." (2 Cor. 15:10). When in humility a saint uses God's grace in co-operating with God, he becomes an overcomer over sin, sickness and death for the glory of God.

We are expected by God to agree with Him when he convicts us about our sin, and then expect God to graciously give us the grace to overcome sin in our lives (John 16:7-15). We should ask God to help us search wrong sinful attitudes that are hidden within our heart until we die physically and lose the sinful nature that stays within us (Psa 139:23-24). When Jesus told the woman who was caught in the adultery to "go and sin no more", He was at that time giving her an unusual grace to overcome that particular adulterous sin, and therefore advised her to humbly follow Him to be an over-comer, but no way Jesus was commanding and demanding a sin free life on her own after rescuing her from imminent death in the hands of religious Pharisees who wanted to stone her according to the law of Moses because of her sinful past. Just because she received grace to overcome her adulterous way of life does not mean that she will live sin free in all other areas of her spiritual life, but in other areas she still had to keep asking again for God's help to overcome sin as all children of the first Adam, born of woman will have sin nature until they die physically on earth and go on to be with the Lord in heaven (Rom 6:6; 7:24-25; 8:3; John 8:10-12). In other words, our sinful nature of the flesh will never die until we die physically.

The truth of the gospel is that all children of God are spiritually entitled and empowered by God, and the power over sin is already within the reach of their positive life giving decision that they make to humble themselves before God to receive grace to live as overcomers over sin and reign in this life itself (Eph 1:3; 1 Peter 5:5-6; Rom 5:17). We can choose to grow spiritually strong over recurring sins through living an overcoming life over sin by faith in Christ Jesus, but until we die we cannot be sin free in our Christian life totally. To some degree we will keep overcoming sin that we were weak in through being empowered by God's grace (2 Cor 2:14), still some secret faults of sinful attitude will keep coming up within us as we have a deceitful heart of sin (Jer 17:9-10), but as we ask God help in Christ Jesus, we will victoriously march through to victory from besetting life of sin in to life of perfection that God has planned through His grace for us (Matt 6:48).

Much Blessings....

When We See Dreams, Does It Mean God Is Saying Something?

Can You Tell Me About Dreams?

Question : Pastor can you tell me about dreams because I had one which has been bothering me. Thanks in advance.

Answer : Greetings to you in Jesus name! God primary way of speaking to all humans has always been through dreams from the beginning of time. Here is what the Bible reveals about God given dreams, "14 For God may speak in one way, or in another, yet man does not perceive it. 15 In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, while slumbering on their beds, 16 Then He opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction. 17 In order to turn man from his deed, and conceal pride from man, 18 He keeps back his soul from the Pit, and his life from perishing by the sword." (Job 33:14-18). Man is a spiritual being who can easily understand the spiritual message when his soul is still and his body is at rest during the night time. Mostly God gives dreams to people when they are asleep in deep sleep and are slumbering in sleep. Yes God does speak to all humans in dreams, in which He opens up the deep spiritual ear that is within all humans and puts inside the spirit the message that He wants to convey to them. When God wants to correct a person, reprove, keep people humble and thus restrain them from destroying themselves (Prov 16:18).

Dreams and visions are nearly the same, the primary difference between a dream and a vision is that with a dream you are asleep when the Holy Spirit is communicating with you. In short, in a dream you are the recipient of the message of God which He has sent to you. You only receive it. With a vision you are not asleep, you are always awake. In a vision, you are not only the recipient of the message, you are also a partaker in it and therefore you will see yourself involved in it. God chooses which way He wants to speak to you. But both are genuine thing from God.

One of the important way God has promised to speak to all New Testament believers is through vision and dreams, apostle Peter revealed this God's intention when he said, "And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams." (Acts 2:17). When a person is filled with the Spirit of God with the external initial evidence of speaking in tongues and the resultant continuing prayer language of speaking mysteries to God, the frequency of these dreams and visions also increase. Dreams are something that acts as a bridge to connect the eternal realm of God to our human temporal realm of humans. Dreams and visions are the father of faith. Each dreams and visions carry within it the power to make us reach us to our destiny. It makes us walk by faith and helps us receive the provision to fulfill the vision or dream.

There are some demonic dreams and visions that Satan sends as a counterfeit to God many times to make people filled with fear, so that through that open door of fear, he will move into their lives to steal, kill and destroy (Job 7:14-16; John 10:10). Because Satan is an angel of light who is trying to deceive all humanity to make them run away from God, he will try to portray God in a negative way always in the mind of people using these dreams and visions (2 Cor 11:14). We should test our dream or vision as genuine or not by knowing whether it is creating faith or fear, humility or pride and gives grace or increases weaknesses within us. Any dream or vision that creates negative emotions within one's heart will mostly be a demonic dream only. Sometimes when God gives you a warning, he might seriously convey it with the consequences you might face when you do not choose to walk the path God expects you to walk (Gen 20:3-7). On such times a holy terror of the Lord might accompany his warning in a dream (2 Cor 5:11).

Still at other times, when we eat to the full and sleep, dreams might naturally come because dreams are the brain's way of rebooting the system of our body (Eccl 5:3, 7). Sometimes such dreams can be deceitful as such dreams can be the direct result of repressed emotions and they might represent unconscious thoughts, wishes or desires, and above all such dreams can deceive humans if they are taken as a guidance for a go ahead message from God through wrong interpretation of it (Jer 17:9; 23:16; Ezk 13:3).

Most medical and psychological experts believe we dream to assist the body with rest, repair and rejuvenation and some others speculate that we dream for psychological reasons: to reexamine the day's events, to reduce and relieve stress, and to provide an outlet for pent-up emotions. Some dream come in black and white; still other dream come in color. Without fail everyone dreams, though some times people may not remember it when they awake, and tend to say that they were not conscious about any dream during their sleep time. Soulish dreams are something we ourselves think and may tend to forget easily. Demonic dreams which tries to scare people are also from the soul realm and therefore can be easily forgotten if we choose to not take it seriously. Only God's dream is from within our spiritual man within, therefore it can keep coming to our soul mind and can bother a person until the intended message of God reaches to our soul understanding and then ample effort is put in to action to obey or respond to the message (Gen 40:5-9, 16, 18; 41:1, 4-5, 8, 25, 37-38; Dan 2:1, 3; 4:5, 19). From the time we are babies until the day we die, our minds constantly produce dreams while our bodies and brains are at rest. The average person spends a third of their life sleeping and six years in a dream state. Dreams can be filled with stories and answers constructed with symbolic images of animals, events, places, things, people and numbers. Dreams that come from the eternal God of Love can help us avoid a problem, make decision to overcome a obstacle, explain a hidden cycle of bondage due to evil spiritual influence from the past, show you the unfolding future to make you walk by faith or help you find true love by connecting you to the right person through God's agents.

If at any time we do not know the interpretation for any dream, God has told us to humbly ask Him for wisdom to interpret the dreams, and as a result of our asking by faith, God has promised to give us enough wisdom liberally and without reproach to interpret the dream or know the source of it (James 1:5). Whatever dreams that have come to you might have been a message from God and that is why it is bothering you. So ask God for wisdom to interpret the dream that is bothering you. Remember, dreams remain a mystery until the source and code are discovered and so keep seeking wisdom from God humbly, and you will be amazed to find the the very voice of God through it.

Much Blessings...

Does The Promise Of The Spirit Means Baptism By The Holy Spirit Or Baptism With-In The Holy Spirit?

What Is The Blessing Of Abraham?

Question : Beloved apostle of God, may I ask what exactly is the Blessing of Abraham that apostle Paul speaks about in Galatians and also which God promises to Abraham in Genesis 12. Is it Christ?

Answer : Greetings to you in Jesus name! This is a question that we need to dig in to the Word of God to find it. Yes, apostle Paul said in Galatians 3:13-14, "13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), 14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith."

In the above verse 13 we see how all human have a tendency and inclination to sin because of the fallen nature of sin within, and therefore cannot keep the law of God perfectly without ever breaking one of the commandment to get blessed by God continually (James 2:10), and the nation of Israel was the perfect example of how they have tried to keep the law of God for nearly 1500 years and finally were cursed by the very law which they kept and boasted of as the route to live a worthy spiritual lives of blessing when they were not even able to keep it perfectly in the sight of God (John 5:39, 45; Matt 23:2, 23, 27; Luke 16:14). The curse of the law makes a person to be a religious worker of external works of righteousness before men, without ever giving them the true internal righteousness which God demands from all men, and that which only comes by believing in Jesus (Psa 51:6, 11-12, 16-17). Abraham believed the coming Messiah Jesus in those days itself who will come and save him from his sin, and therefore by faith he accepted the promise of God to receive righteousness of faith through the Holy Spirit in those days itself (John 8:56; Gal 3:5-6). Now all humans in the world who believe just like Abraham the father of our faith, believing that Jesus had already come and have died for their sin and believe that all the promises of God in the Bible will come to pass in their lives through their personal relationship with God, will come to receive the righteousness of faith which will work within them by the Holy Spirit from within to make them work for God with God's strength to please God in all things (Gal 3:8-9; 1 Cor 15:1-4). God sees from the beginning of time, the people of faith who believed in His Messiah to be those who are accepted as righteous before Him, and therefore justified them in Christ (Gal 2:16).

Knowing the above facts, now we can see in the above verse 14 of Galatians Chapter 3, Paul says this as "the blessing of Abraham", What is it?, Justified before God by faith in Christ, so that the particular "promise of the Spirit" can be received through faith. In other words, only the Spirit working through us can really bring God's blessing upon our lives on earth to make us a blessing to many just as Abraham our father of faith was blessed. The "promise of the Spirit" is a phrase that was used in many other ways like "...give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!" (Luke 11:13), "Promise of My Father" (Luke 24:49), "The Promise of the Father" (Acts 1:4), "you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you" (Acts 1:8), "...come to Me and drink" (John 7:37-38), "they will speak with new tongues" (Mark 16:17) by Jesus to denote the out working of the Holy Spirit to be a witness and then he has also spoken of the Baptism by the Holy Spirit which is New Testament's salvation work of the Holy Spirit in the believer's life in many other places (John 14:15-18, 26; 15:26-27; 16:7-15).

First God promised this promise of the Spirit by saying, "And I will put my spirit within you." (Ezekiel 36:27). This was the outworking of God's salvation through His Spirit. But the word "upon" denotes the Baptism with the Holy Spirit or Baptism in the Holy Spirit that God gives to all believers with the external evidence of speaking in other tongues as He has promised right from the days of John the Baptist to the apostles who wrote the whole of the New Testament and also to us in our days (Luke 3:16; 11:13; John 7:39; Acts 2:1-4; 38-39; 10:45; 11:16-14). The study of the Bible tells us clearly that the terms "baptism of the Spirit," "drinking of the Spirit," "pouring out of the Spirit," "Spirit coming upon you," "clothed with power" and "filling of the Spirit" are all synonyms -- they describe the same experience of getting Baptized in the Holy Spirit with the initial external evidence of speaking in tongues and the blessing of a continuing prayer language which makes all believers to pray mysteries to God.

So when apostle Paul says, "that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:14), we know that according to the phraseology he is speaking about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit or the gift of the Holy Spirit with the New Testament's external evidence of speaking in tongues which will continue with the believer as a prayer language towards God forever on earth (1 Cor 14:2, 4). In other words, I believe that Abraham must have lived in the New Testament style of intimacy with God by speaking mysteries to God in prayer through tongues like a New Testament believer in the Old Testament time itself. GLORY TO GOD!

Also God promised to Abraham in Gen 12:1-3 as follows, "Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. 2 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”" In the above verses we see that a single obedience to the voice of God by Abraham in 'getting out of his native country, from his family and from his father’s house, to the land that God showed him' made God to fulfill His perpetual eternal promise that God gave to Abraham. In the physical level like the sands of the sea, the sons of Abraham who were the Jews got multiplied and were blessed with a land to live with on earth (Gen 13:16-17; 17:7-8). In the spiritual level like the stars of the sky, the sons of Abraham who were Christians in Christ got multiplied and received all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places with a spiritual and eternal promise of a home land to live forever with God in heaven just like Abraham our Father of faith (Gen 15:5-6; Gal 3:9, 29; Eph 1:3; John 14:2-3; Heb 11:8-10, 13-16; 13:14). God said 5 "I will's" after demanding that one obedience from Abraham, "... I will show you. 2 I will make ...; I will bless you ...and ...I will bless those ..., and I will curse him". These five "I will" are God's responsibilities and obligation that He worked through Abraham by the Holy Spirit. But in the process of the great out-working of God through Abraham, the thing that manifested through his life was "you shall be a blessing...and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." In other words, because the Spirit of God was the promised blessing that was not only working within Abraham, but upon Abraham, He was made by God to be a continual spiritual blessing to whomever he met and came in to contact through Divine appointment orchestrated by God.

The same capacity of the Spirit of God has been promised to all believers by God who expects them to approach Him by faith in the name of Jesus and receive it from Him without fail by persistence and obedience (Acts 1:8; 5:32; Gal 3:14). So the bottom line is, blessing of Abraham was the capacity of the Spirit of God which was outworking within Abraham and upon Him which has been promised to all humans who seek God through Jesus Christ (John 14:16-17; 7:39). In other words, the blessing of Abraham is the promise of the Spirit, which we will receive from God the Father through believing in Christ's finished work on the Cross. So the blessing of Abraham is not Christ, but the capacity of the Spirit that comes within and upon us through our faith in Christ's sacrifice for us which bring us freely in to justification by God and friendship with God.

Much Blessings....

What It Really Means To Confess Christ Before Men?

Can A Christian Wish The Unbelievers For Their Occasional Festivities?

Question : I have a doubt whether a Christian can wish their non-christian friends for their celebration of special occasions that they celebrate like Deepavali, Onam, Pongal, Pooja, Ramazan, etc....I being a leader in our college who partakes in major occasions like these, should I restrain myself from this or it is OK to wish all the public when I speak? My Christian friends who work in big companies also face such situations and they asked me about it, I told them that I will clear their doubt soon? What do you think is right Biblically regarding these issues?

Answer : Greetings to you in Jesus name! I am so glad that you were able to ask a important question that many Christian face in our generation, as the world is calling itself secular to celebrate whatever brings them business and partying chance to indulge their taste bud in to something new. We as the children of God are not supposed to be conformed to the world system and its religious tradition that misleads millions and millions of people around the world to keep them caught in the eternal darkness of sin without God, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind through the word of God to fulfill His will for our lives (Rom 8:17; 12:2).

See, each traditional festival of all the religions around the world have their own reason to celebrate each festival. Each festival is celebrated to declare that their wrong belief in a particular religion has achieved something for themselves. Most religions have myths and fables of old to celebrate their occasions. A good Spirit filled Christian who follows the Lord Jesus cannot wish a unbeliever for their festival. To wish them for their festival is like agreeing with their wrong belief and encouraging it without bothering about their eternal gloom that they are heading without Christ (John 3:17-21; 8:24).

For example Paul the apostle said, "27 If any of those who do not believe invites you to dinner, and you desire to go, eat whatever is set before you, asking no question for conscience’ sake. 28 But if anyone says to you, “This was offered to idols,” do not eat it for the sake of the one who told you, and for conscience’ sake; for “the earth is the LORD’s, and all its fullness.” 29 “Conscience,” I say, not your own, but that of the other. For why is my liberty judged by another man’s conscience? 30 But if I partake with thanks, why am I evil spoken of for the food over which I give thanks? 31 Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 32 Give no offense, either to the Jews or to the Greeks or to the church of God, 33 just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved." (1 Cor 10:27-33). In the above verses, we can clearly see how a person like Apostle Paul who was so zealous for spreading the good news of Jesus Christ to save people from sin and bring them in to friendship with God because of his love for God and people, was so careful with his attitude of godliness towards other people. Here he expresses four important things that can be taken and applied as principles for our own lives regarding our attitude towards festivals of the unbelievers of other religions who celebrate it,

1) If casually someone wishes you telling the name of the festival they celebrate, then say to them in reply, "Wish you a wonderful time....or something in general." If they specifically tell about their belief and the way they will celebrate it doing the custom or tradition that they hold, do not reply back or wish them anything. Just give them a loving smile! The above way we respond to unbelievers to show them that we do not agree with what they believe as the truth. The Scriptures tells us to, "speak the truth in Love" (Eph 4:15). It is because of our love towards their soul, that we should act based on our belief. Because Christ has died for them, the Love of God should drive us to act madly like this for the sake of God to make them know that we do not believe what they believe to be true (2 Cor 5:13-15).

2) If they ask why we do not wish them for that particular festival that they celebrate, then give them the gospel with conviction that is within you (1 Thess 1:5; 2 Cor 6:1-10). As Apostle Peter agrees with such belief and says, "15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; 16 having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. 17 For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil." (1 Peter 3:14-17). Some people may mock you for such a belief calling you names such as 'Holy Joe, Holy Priest, Holy Mother, etc..', still others may accept the gospel seeing how Christ is working out your good conduct and making you excel in all things, and still others may start to persecute you for your belief. If you stand for Christ and get persecuted, it is the will of God for your life that you are fulfilling, and that you are a blessed person because you are collecting for yourself great eternal reward.

3) Give thanks to God for the opportunity God gives to you to share the gospel through such occasions. We should not in any way give offence to the unbelievers by speaking against their tradition which they value it so highly because of their wrong belief, but wisely speak to them giving them the reason why we believe the gospel and do not agree with any belief other than what we believe to be the truth. We should try to pleasingly relate with these unbelievers through the gospel in whatever way we can, in order to connect to the unbelievers so that at least some of them might get saved by the truth they hear through our words and godly lives we demonstrate.

4) Ask yourself, whether what you are trying to exhibit about yourself is done to show to the unbelievers about your religious zeal towards God with pride or to save them from the wrong belief they are caught in? What you speak to the unbelievers was to win over them in debate for your eloquence and your great belief about the true God or to love them in such a way that you want them to be saved from the spiritual darkness that they are in? Why do you share the gospel? Is it done for the glory of God, or to glorify yourself for your true belief? Do you simply want to show that your religion is superior to them, or you want them to understand that they are believing sugar-coated religious lies that cannot save them from sin and give them eternal life? Tell them that Jesus is the only way and there is not other way to become friend with God (John 14:6).

If you are a leader in a college or a staff in a company, and you are facing the same situation we have discussed above, you are positioned by God in a place of position for the sole purpose of glorifying God before all people. So when you have the choice to present a good speech regarding your subject, and welcome people, and do a master in ceremony type of leadership, and also have the need to finally wish the the people who heard you regarding any festival they celebrate, on such occasions you can present the speech regarding your subject of expertise and then voluntarily side-step and allow some other person to do the final wishing part with out creating any wrong impression of the agreement of our faith with theirs, which might affect their conscience to stay in darkness without seeing any light through our lives which might disturb and convict their conscience regarding their wrong belief (John 3:19-21; 8:11-12; 12:35-36; Matt 5:14, 16). Or as we have seen in the first point, do a general type of wishing without getting to use any specific name of their festival.

When a Christian partakes in all celebrations of the unbelievers, without ever thinking of the belief that they hold dear to their heart, their lives will become a poor testimony for Christ and therefore will get themselves conformed to the religious trends of the world rather than get transformed by the belief of faith that renews their mind to inherit spiritual and eternal glory which is the reward that they are entitled to get (Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26; Matt 10:32). Would you be willing to confess to others that you believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God (Matt 16:16-17; Acts 8:36-37)? To confess Christ as unique, we should say why we do not believe all religion to be the same and what is unique with Christ who has saved us from sin and death. We will be rewarded according to our boldness to stand for Christ and spread the gospel on earth through proclaiming it and also living it which is the real work of God (John 6:28-29).

Much Blessings....

How to Deal With One's Past Relationship After Coming To Christ?

Should My Friend Marry This Hindu Girl?

Question : Praise the Lord! Dear Pastor, In our youth meet yesterday we discussed about a christian marriage article from your website apostolicrevelation.info. It encouraged us greatly. Out of this, a question arose from my friend who was a Hindu boy before. Now he is a born again Christian. He is a good guy, really a burning soul for Christ's glory...But, he before knowing the Lord Christ, he committed to a relationship with a Hindu girl ...she,is also good & homely girl..,they were sincere in their relationship...In your article you said, "can two person walk with the same purpose and same direction if their mind thinks differently." The above statement is very true, He understood & asked me...What can I do now...If I broke the relationship now...I don't know what will happen to that girl!!! She will do anything...because they loved each other soulfully with truthfulness.... But my friend after accepting Christ...He used to preach gospel to everyone, including her and as a result she also is now starting to read the Bible..and does prayers..,etc... What is the solution for it...My thinking is, in the future the girl also will accept Christ with her whole heart...because she is now reading the truth! So what he has to do for this!!! If he breaks the relationship then one soul be lost!! If he encourages her in Christ and leads her to knowing the truth, then truth will set her free, as a result of it one soul will be gained!!! What is the solution? Explain us in a practical and Biblical way. Explain to us practically and also Biblically...Thanks.

Answer : Greetings to you in Jesus name! Praise the Lord that your friend who has been in spiritual darkness has been born again from above to receive the light of Jesus and has become a burning soul for Christ's glory. I praise God that our website has been used by God around the world as a continual blessing to many like you and your friends. GLORY TO God!

In your friend's life, I tell you of the sin that he had been involved in was been having a relationship with a girl before he ever got married with her, and this is fornication as the Bible clearly reveals (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). Sin is transgression of the law of God (1 John 3:4). According to Hebrews 13:4 in the Bible, a prostitute, a harlot, a whore, were all guilty of the same thing - fornication. God's view of marriage bed starts the day we are born, before which itself he has a perfect person according to his will who will be given to us in the right time He has planned. Fornication is a sin against our own body which is the other person who is going to marry us in the future time. Jesus challenged every human to stay pure in their body, thoughts and emotions which are equally a spiritual adultery in the heart according to God (Matt 5:27-29). So we were all in some way and degree like that before we came to Christ, but now as we have come to Christ, we should choose to leave behind all these garbage of sinful lifestyle and start to live holy for God and our Lord Jesus who has given us His very life to make us as a sanctified saints in Him (1 Cor 6:11; 1 Peter 4:3, 1-2).

The Bible says that, "15 and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. 16 Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." (2 Cor 5:15-17). The above verses clearly reveal that because our old life of sin is gone forever being dead in Christ's death, now with the new life we no longer should live for sin and self, instead of living for the old natural fleshly connection of our old relationship with sin, we should start to live for the risen Christ and his will to be done in our lives.

Death to sin and self is a familiar theme in Paul. "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (or a similar statement) is found in virtually every one of his letters (Gal 2:20, compare Rom 6:6-14; Eph 2:1-5; Col 2:20). When Augustine the great man of God returned to his hometown after his conversion in Milan, his former girlfriend called to him: "Augustine, Augustine, it is I!" He turned to her and said: "Yes, but it is not I." Where there is a radical change of attitude toward life and self, that is the true conversion that the Bible speaks about.

So your friend should make a hard choice to hear the voice of Jesus and leave behind his old life to ask Jesus guidance through his voice within to do His will for his life (John 10:27). He should tell of his faith to that girl and clearly state the vision that God has given for his life. If the girl has faith in Jesus and wanted to follow him still, she will agree with his vision and will co-operate to follow Jesus with the same thinking and direction in her mind. Or else she will refuse to carry on further in her relationship. This is what Paul said when he stated to the people who came to Christ as believers but that their wife or husband were still unbelievers, "12 But to the rest I, not the Lord, say: If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. 13 And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. 15 But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace. 16 For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?" (1 Cor 7:12-16).

Just because she is reading the truth now does not guarantee that she will become a believer in Christ Jesus to work with him in the ministry of propagating the gospel in the future. If your wife or husband is a unbeliever, how can you know whether you will save your husband or wife for sure?, was the question Paul asked the believing husband or wife who believed. In other words just because they were saved doesn't guarantee that their wife or husband will also get automatically saved. No man or woman know for sure who will be saved, it is better to marry within the Biblical boundary of getting yoked with a believer, I also recommend it in this case too (2 Cor 6:14). To gain one soul for God cannot be done in God's way by disobeying his clear command not to marry a person who is a unbeliever. To God always obedience is better than any great sacrifice that we think we do for God, more than any sacrifice we make for God, it is the broken spirit that trusts and obeys Him completely that gives Him joy (1 Sam 15:22; Psa 51:17). To marry a unbeliever expecting them to become a believer after marriage is clearly breaking God's command, and then expecting God to help the unbeliever through a miraculous change to build a good Christ-centered Christian family is like marrying a devil's child and then expecting them to change just because we have married them. Will God bless it? By no means. God has never told that He will bless disobedience just because someone is his child. Do not forget that Satan will be the mother-in-law of such a believer who will have to deal with him within their house often. I am just speaking in a lighter vein, do not mistake me... I mean the Bible says that all who walk in darkness without the spiritual light of Jesus are under the power of Satan (Eph 5:8; Acts 26:18).

I have seen some believers who got married with unbelievers, some were able to convince their spouse by the mercies of God to get them saved through the godly life they lived before them and thus build a good christian home later in their lives, and also I have seen believers who got married with unbelievers mess up their family life to live in chaos the rest of their lives and live purposelessly wasting their precious one life that God had given them. So it is still a fifty fifty chance and has no guarantee to succeed hundred percentage even though the unbelieving spouse become religious without ever becoming a true born-again child of God (Matt 24:40-41; 25:1-12). It is not good to waste one's life that God has given us to live for Him by taking a fifty fifty chance. But it is better to hear the voice of our Master shepherd Jesus by desiring to do His will and asking Him without any precondition (John 10:27). If God shows a wrong motive, one should immediately humble oneself and be ready to take a decision that will please Him. Such person cannot be deceived by the enemy of our soul who deceives all believers to make them waste their precious life without any use to God or His purposes (John 10:10; 2 Thess 2:11-12).

Finally today is the "day of salvation" (2 Cor 6:2-3), so if the girl is saved now, let your friend go ahead or else let him not put his life to chances by marrying the wrong girl outside of the will of God. May God guide Him in to the destiny that He has for him and may the girl whom he had relationship in the past also come to realize the truth of salvation through Jesus and be saved for eternity ahead (John 14:6).

Much Blessings....