Preach By Faith Or Preach No More Than To Ask Money For Ministry

We Preachers, Should We Expect Money From Foreign Countries To Preach Gospel In Our Motherland ???????

Question : WE INDIAN PREACHERS, SHOULD WE EXPECT MONEY FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES TO PREACH GOSPEL IN OUR MOTHERLAND ??????? We will preach the Love of Cross to India and wash India by the Blood of the Lamb with our hard work. Today, many preachers including top preachers are using India's name and collecting money, funds to preach gospel and build Churches.....ENOUGHHHHHHHH..... It's our time for Youngsters... We will work hard and support our Ministries.... Hey, Preachers who all use India's name for their own gain are saying India is a poor country so please help India.... STOP ALL YOUR GAMES...start to PREACH THE GOSPEL. What do you think about this?

Answer : No preacher should ever beg for sustaining himself or his ministry. If someone cannot survive in ministry except by appealing for money or by distorting the message of the gospel and dilute it to a health and wealth gospel of greed, it would be better for them to leave the ministry and do some other work for themselves than to continue in it and lose their eternal reward completely. If God has really called a minister to do His work, God will provide for His servant and also for His own work. Each preacher should wait patiently on God to provide for their needs and should not reveal their need to the Church or any other person until God supplies their need. This is true faith. False faith is doing God's work presumptuously and then start to beg openly for money from the people who have come to hear the word of God when some need arises. Some people hide their unbelief and share their need as some prayer points to pray before people and then expect people to supply for their needs. These are worthless tricks of some people who think that God's name is the one thing they can use to beg for money with out losing their dignity. These are charlatans and not genuine ministers of the gospel.

God's word clearly says to, "7 Remember those who rule [and lead] over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 9 Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them. " (Heb 13:7-9). In the above verses we see clearly that those who are true ministers of the gospel should not only spiritually lead and speak the word of God with signs, wonders and miracles following them, but their faith should be seen in the work they do having a clean hands, being accountable to those who are being served, with a open display of good godly character that does not run after gain for themselves or has covetousness hidden behind their religious act and talk or lusts after strange flesh having adulterous eyes (2 Peter 2:12-14). Only those godly ministers will have the true grace of God with them to establish the heart of the believers in the true grace of God that transforms inwardly the mind of those who hear the word of God to do it in their lives. Those ministers who live with the wrong motive of earthly gain will have no grace to change the heart of the hearers who hear them and make them be established in the true grace that comes through genuine faith. Each believer should not follow a minister of God without testing their lives and motives through the Spirit of God, if ever they are deceived by someone whom they follow blindly, they personally have to give account to God for being deceived and for wasting their lives and resources that God had given to them to glorify Him (Rev 2:2). Doctrines of preachers and teachers of God's word must be tested by comparing Scripture with Scripture and then only should be trusted, just like the Berean believers did in the first century to the teachings of the great apostle Paul, which was actually commended by the Holy Spirit (Acts 17:10-11). Each believer is responsible for his own spiritual state before God and therefore cannot blame any other person as the cause for being deceived, as the word of God is already given to all believers to find clarity of thought and find the counterfeit from the genuine.

The word of this great man of God is worth remembering even in these end times we live in because single handedly he proved his word in fulfilling the glorious ministry he started and finished by faith. This is none other then the China Inland Mission founder Hudson Taylor who famously said, “God’s work, done God’s way, will never lack God’s supply.” This quote is not a quote for fundraising as people usually misuse it. It is a quote that magnifies God and says that He is never in lack of money for doing His work as He is the one who owns the whole heavens and the earth in all its fullness (Psa 50:10-13). But it is up to us to trust God's timing and stand in His appointment to let Him do His work through us for His glory. So God is looking not for laborers who do it for cheap money as though there is lack of resource with God and that it needs to be managed through cheap and voluntary labor for God's Kingdom. But actually God is looking for faithful servants and sons who are ready to let themselves die and let God transform them in to His likeness through letting God live through them in their times of wants and waiting in the ministry they are called to do for God.

The Didache meaning “Teaching” is the short name of a Christian manual compiled before 300AD. The full title is The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. Though this manual was not considered as the inspired Scripture, yet this was the apostles manual that many followed as spiritual principles guide during the first three centuries to excel in their spiritual lives along with the Gospels and Epistles the foundational apostles wrote in the first century. If we could open it in our times, this apostolic teaching is also speaking to our times of the end prophetically. So only we are opening it up and are seeing what the apostles had to say about ministers who ask for money and who do not have the Character of Christ to display in their lives. In the first three century after Christ's death, clearly the apostles told the believers that if any one comes asking money for themselves or for the ministry, they should immediately be considered as false minister. 

The same thing we see as a confirmation in their "Teaching" in which they say, "Even if a prophet teaches the truth, if he does not do what he teaches, is a false prophet (Matt 23:1-3)....Receive everyone who comes in the name of the Lord. When you have tested them you will know them, for you will be able to discern true from false. If the one who comes is a traveler, assist him, as well as you can, but he should not stay with you more than two days — or three if necessary. But if he is a craftsman who wishes to settle with you, let him work for his bread. If he has no trade, use your discretion to provide a way for him to live as a Christian among you, but not in idleness. If he will not do this, he is trading Christ for profit. Beware of such men. But all true prophets and teachers who wish to settle among you are, like workers, worthy of their food. Therefore you should always give the first fruits of the produce ...If you do not have a prophet, give them to the poor instead. If anyone says in the Spirit, “Give me silver”, or asks for anything else, do not listen to him. But if he tells you to give to others that are in want, let no one judge him... In the last days the false prophets and corrupter's shall multiply, and the sheep will be turned into wolves, and love will be turned into hate. As lawlessness increases, they will persecute and betray and hate one another. And then the deceiver of the world will appear as a Son of God, performing signs and wonders, and the earth will be delivered into his hands. He will do things more unholy than any since the beginning of the world." [Referred from the Source website named as Christian History Institute : https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/study/module/didache/]. 

From the above teaching of the apostles we know that anyone no matter how anointed a minister of God may seem, if they have a tendency to trade Christ for profit, stays idle but says why I should not be rich as I am a minister of God and then asks money for himself or in the name of God asks for money to promote His ministry, immediately what they speak should not be heard by the believers as they are false ministers who have gone astray for profit. Each believer should choose to willingly give to the Lord how much he wants out of cheerfulness, God loves the heart of those such cheerful givers who come forward to give voluntarily for the Lord out of love and gratefulness for what He had already done for them in Christ Jesus (2 Cor 9:7; Exo 35:21-22). We are warned nearly from the first few centuries prophetically by the apostles that the last generation will be misled and become deceived through signs, wonders and miracles done by false ministers in the name of Christ who under the influence of the evil one will try to turn the sheep followers of Christ in to greedy wolves who run after the flesh (Matt 7:21-23), they will also try their best to conceal hate and corruption under the suit of the anointing of love given by Christ to spread His message and extend His kingdom for His glory (Matt 7:15-20). Surely these will cause a division within the Church of God and will take them after themselves (Acts 20:29-35). Never invest your precious God given resource of time, talent and treasure in to a ministry just because it is followed by signs, wonders and miracles, instead look for a ministry that has a lasting fruit of changed lives, transformed character and empowered lives. O what a warning to our generation that is running after signs and wonders! May the fear of the Lord bring back the greedy entertainment seekers of the Church to become the true seekers of God!

No matter whether the ministry of God is done in a wealthy country or poorest of the poor country, God is never in lack of money to provide. God provided supernaturally for Elijah food and sustenance in the wilderness through a raven, as well as in the village where he stayed after that with a widow and her son who had nothing but a little flour and oil to eat and die, God supernaturally multiplied the flour and oil to supply Elijah's and the widows need in spite of people who lived around them were without food because of famine. Elijah's ministry is a model for the Church in our times as we are also waiting for a Spirit of Elijah to come upon the Church and make it ready for the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ who is the Messiah who is going to come. God will provide where we are, but the most important thing in doing ministry is, are we doing it by faith in God without asking or by begging all people who have money with them. Is our ministry built by revealing our needs only to our Lord Jesus? Are we bold enough to venture by faith what we are told by God to fulfill or are we looking for support from earthly sources who will promise their support? Only the ministry done with the right motives of faith will have reward for eternity. Never miss the eternal by lusting for the temporal!

Much Blessings...

Should We Fast Or Not?

Is Fasting A Compulsory Commandment We Must Obey In The New Testament?

Question : Please tell me, Is fasting compulsory?

Answer : Greetings to you in Jesus name! In the Old Testament, God commanded Israel to observe only one set time of fasting through the law of Moses on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:29-30; 23:27-31; Numbers 29:7). This custom resulted in calling this day “the fasting day” (Jeremiah 36:6) or “the fast,” (Acts 27:9). It was a very solemn and holy day with a lot of elaborate ritual (Leviticus 16; Hebrews 10:1-3).

In the instruction that God gave to afflict the soul of a person in the law of Moses, it does not directly speak about fasting, but we know through the tradition of Israelite's and from other Scriptures that the affliction of soul is a symbolic way of saying to fast and seek the Lord with a intention to receive His goodness and be thankful for the sacrificial way God supplies His forgiveness for all their sins (Psa 69:10). Fasting is explicitly the means of “humbling” oneself in their soul (Psa 35:13) and that is relatively spoken by God Himself when He asked the Israelites through the prophet Isaiah, "Is it a fast that I have chosen, a day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush, and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Would you call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?." (Isa 58:5). In the above verse we see that fasting and affliction of one's soul is connected. Even during Old Testament times God has clearly revealed that the fasting that pleases God is the one which has repentance as the focus of it, and fasting without any intention to repent of one's sinful behavior has no value before God (Isa 58:1-4).

For New Testament believers, fasting was neither commanded nor forbidden in the Bible. But we know when Jesus said, "16 Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 17 But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly." (Matt 6:16-18). In other words, Jesus expected sincere spiritual seekers of God to fast and pray, then He assured them that God surely will publicly reward their fasting prayer which was done with the right motive privately in secret before God, and therefore wanted them to expect God the Father to reward their sincere seeking openly before men. Jesus did not discourage men from fasting, but only said that those who make a show of their fasting before men will have that show as the only reward that they will get for their fasting. So though fasting was neither commanded nor forbidden, yet we know the value of it when it is done with the right motive before God. To do fasting as religious discipline has no spiritual value with God, though it does have physical and soulish value to it if it is done properly within its limit (Luke 18:12). Actually such religious discipline is discouraged by the apostles as it will turn people in to self-righteous zombies rather than a God pleasing righteous persons (Col 2:18, 21-23). Our fasting should have right motives behind it always to have spiritual value before God (Jer 14:12; Zech 7:2-7; 8:6).

Jesus implied that His disciples who will seek for more of His presence and intimacy after His ascension to heaven will fast to hear from His heart and submit to His will and ways (Mark 2:18-20; Luke 5:33-35). He also emphasized the combined power of fasting and prayer is the only way great faith can arise in our lives to help us destroy the demonic powers in the natural world which is controlled by it (Matt 17:14-21).

One must understand that fasting is not a end in itself through which we can make God do what we desire, instead it is just a means to an end through which we humble ourselves before God and seek for His perfect will to be understood and be done in the circumstances we face or the decisions that we take in our lives.

We should understand how God supernaturally led Anna the prophetess who served God with fastings and prayers night and day to see the Savior of the world (Luke 2:36-37). And also the gentile Cornelius who sought God honestly with fasting and prayer was supernaturally met by an angel sent by God, who thus through his guidance led him and his household in to true salvation (Acts 10:31-32).

We see in the life of Jesus, how He prayed and fasted before the Spirit of God could take control of Him completely to make Him face Satan and experience the supernatural victory of heaven on earth, which finally made Satan to flee away from Him until the opportune time would come (Mt 4:1-2; Lk 4:1-2). We know prophetically in a Messianic Scripture of the Old Testament Psalms by David, it was prophesied how the life style of Jesus would involve fasting often that even his knees would become weak because of it, but that at the end of all weakness he would rejoice because the mighty hand of God will fight for Him and justify Him against all the accusations of the enemy (Psa 109:24-31; Mark 9:29). This has happened exactly through out the life of Jesus and the zenith of its fulfillment happened when Jesus died and all hell broke loose against Him, but yet it could not prevail over Him as He came alive and well to be seated at the right hand of God with all authority over the whole universe (Matt 28:18; Eph 1:20-21). O what a victory because of a sincere lifestyle of fasting and prayer that Jesus practiced!

Again for example, Paul the apostle was a man who passionately lived for God and sought for His will to be perfectly done in His life. At the end of his life on earth he was able to say valiantly, "7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing." (2 Tim 4:7). How was Paul able to live in the perfect will of God until the end of his life? The secret behind it was seen in his life of fasting and prayer, he fasted prior to his baptism (Acts 9:9), he fasted as a part of his victorious ministry (2 Cor 6:4-10; 11:23-28), then after seeing the miraculous breakthroughs in his personal life and ministry he described how fasting might be appropriate for others (1 Cor 7:5).

We must also understand that members of the early first century church at Antioch served the Lord with fasting and prayer (Acts 13:1-2), they did this with expectation to find the perfect will of God for the ministers and send them to supply the precious Gospel to the needy people in all the world. God spoke through a prophetic word among the brethren and clearly directed the apostles Paul and Barnabas whom He had chosen to go to the places of need and supply heaven's abundance to affect the world and turn it upside down (Acts 17:6). Elders were appointed in the churches of Galatia with fasting (Acts 14:21-23), so that the Church might be led in the perfect will of God. So there is a place for the Church to come together to fast and pray for the Gospel of Jesus Christ to spread in all the world and for the needy souls to be saved. He who wins souls is wise and therefore there is a great wisdom and reward for those who seek God through fasting and prayer for His perfect will to be done through their lives, ministries and Churches on earth as it in heaven (Prov 11:30; Matt 6:10).

Our fasting may be abstinence from certain foods that we like or it may be a partial fast in a day or even a full day of fasting from food and water. It all depends on our spiritual desire to know God in a deeper way through the word of God and the Spirit of God, and also our good health that God has given to us and the way we maintain it is a clear indicator to know what we can or what we cannot but just wish we could (1 Tim 5:23). We should look for the right balance and be led by the Spirit of God. There is no right or wrong rule in this because fasting was neither commanded nor forbidden in the Bible, but from the way the Scriptures presents fasting and prayer, we can understand that we need a spiritual discipline in this area of seeking God, humbling ourselves before Him and to receive His guidance clearly to understand the exact voice of God from the voice of the flesh of ourselves or the voice of the demons speaking through our fleshly lusts.

John Wesley said, "Some have exalted religious fasting beyond all Scripture and reason, and others have utterly disregarded it." This above statement of John Wesley who was a man who turned the world upside down in his generation conveys to us to find the right balance to do fasting and prayer. It is totally unprofitable if we totally neglect it or go to the extremes of thinking that we can bend the hands of God the way we want through using fasting and prayer. Fasting and prayer doesn't move God to our way, but it actually moves us to get positioned in His perfect will and way that He desires for us to walk. As we seek to exercise ourselves unto godliness (1 Tim 4:7), consider the practice of fasting as an appropriate complement to prayer and meditation of the Word of God.

Much Blessings....

Can The Gays And Lesbians Be Saved Too?

Did Jesus Die For Gays And Lesbians Too?

Question : Did Jesus die for Gays and Lesbians?

Answer : Gays are men whose sexual orientation is to men, and lesbians are those women whose sexual orientation is to women. The Bible says that when men and women live in this world know God through revelations of Himself to them within their conscience and without through creation, yet when they do not glorify Him as God or were thankful for all His provisions and the gift of life that He has given to them freely through His own will, their mind becomes darkened and their thoughts become without any eternal usefulness. As a result of this darkened condition of their heart, they start to boast foolishly as though they know everything related with this life and the after life, then they start to unnaturally worship images and idols within and without made like perishable man. Therefore God gives them to their spiritually sick state of uncleanness in the mind that makes them to abuse and dishonor their bodies among themselves by jumping in to vile passions of Gay and Lesbianism which is against the nature in which they were created by God to live life and enjoy it in a blessed way (Rom 1:18-27). So in short Gay and Lesbianism is another terrible sin just like any other sin that destroys humans and hides God's face from being seen by them so that God could do nothing to show His love towards those of these unthankful humans legally (Isa 59:1-2; James 2:10).

The Bible says, "16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.' (John 3:16-18). The above verse clearly reveals that God loved the world which includes those gays and lesbians, so that He sent His only begotten Son Jesus to die for them and forgive them from all their sins and to legally make them His children, and all those Gays and Lesbians who choose to hate the sin in which they were involved and accept themselves as sinners in need of the Savior Jesus, will not perish but have everlasting life as a free gift from God. Not because these gays and lesbians have chosen to stop themselves from their sinful lifestyle or because they have started to work righteousness to qualify themselves spiritually they were saved, but were saved by God's grace through faith that has come in to them when they humbly chose to hear the Word and the Voice of God and chose to believe it (Eph 2:8-10; Rom 10:17; Eph 1:13-14). There is nothing to boast in the change of behavior of any sinners after salvation, because belief in Jesus works of righteousness through His death and resurrection on their behalf saved them and not any kind of works they do after they are saved, so works of good behavior are fruit that comes out of salvation and not for salvation (John 15:3-4). So the gay and lesbian behavior will change once such people accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior for salvation, sometimes immediately or at other times after a certain period of time if they are truly saved (Rom 10:8-13). Jesus came not to condemn gays or lesbians, but to save them from this dreadful behavior of sin. If a gay or lesbian believes in Jesus, he will hate their own sinful behavior from the time they are saved. Those who do not believe in Jesus are already condemned according to the perfect law of their own conscience which has become darkened and the evidence of God's truth through creation that spoke within and without them.

So it is very very clear that Jesus did die for the sins of all Gays and Lesbians in all the world. But repentance towards God through believing themselves to be sinners in need of the Savior Jesus is what will make them experience the forgiveness from God, thus making them become heirs of God legally (John 1:12-13; Gal 3:26, 29). Once a Gay or Lesbian person is saved and becomes a child of God, he or she will not be able to continue in his/her sin without any conviction of the Holy Spirit or chastisement from God, which usually comes to turn them away from their sinful lifestyle of past feelings that has got ingrained within their soul mind (1 John 3:9; Heb 12:10-11). God will start to renew the mind of such people if that particular person chooses to co-operate with God to find victory overs sinful pattern that might have haunted them in the past (Eph 4:17-24; 1 Pet 4:1-6). If a person chooses to sin willfully after they were saved from such dreadful sins of Gay and Lesbianism, they will lose the eternal blessing of God that He has kept for them to receive, and some other worthy contender will receive their reward for eternity ahead (Heb 6:4-10, 12; 1 Cor 9:24-27; Rev 3:11). There is only one earthly life that God has given all believers to work for reward after salvation and thus inherit the promise of God for eternity ahead (1 Cor 10:35-36). The reward for our earthly walk with God, will stay with us for the rest of our eternity. In the same way, if we waste our God given time on earth by playing with sin and living for the world instead for God, the treasures we lose for eternity can never ever can again be regained even if we wish for it in heaven.

Much Blessings...

Christian Romance Should Be Private Or Public?

Is There Such A Thing As Biblical Christian Romance?

Question : What do you think about Christian Romance? Whether it should be Private or Public?

Answer : There is no such thing as Christian romance required if we are ready to trust God and do a Christian marriage commitment. That is what the Bible speaks about, and romance after marriage for a lifetime is what is encouraged by God (Eccl 7:26; Prov 5:18-21). So there is no place for such a question of whether Christian Romance should be private or public. Here is what the great apostle Paul says about it, "7 For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that. 8 But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; 9 but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion." (1 Cor 7:7-9). The song of Solomon which is the book of romance for a married couple says, "Do not stir up nor awaken love until it pleases [in commitment of marriage]." (Sos 2:7). So according to this above verse, we should not awaken our God given emotion, sex and drive for physical satisfaction in relationship in any other way except through commitment in marriage, which will make the life of the couple in covenant to be blessed by God for the rest of their lifetime because of trusting God's timing for romance within marriage (Prov 18:22; 19:14; 12:4). Romance before marriage is world's way of seeking pleasure in an ungodly way, God's way of romance is within the covenant of marriage which will last for a lifetime of bliss and blessed time of enjoyment.

Much Blessings...

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

Does 1 John 3:2-9 Say, If You Are Born Again In Christ, You Will Stop Committing Sin?

Question : "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." (1 John 3:2-9 KJV). Does this above verses say that if you are born again in Christ, you will stop committing sin?

Answer: Greetings to you in Jesus wonderful name! The above verses clearly says that now that we have believed in Christ Jesus as our Lord and Savior, so we have become the children and sons of God (John 1:12). But the change that has happened to us is on the inside to become in our character to be like God, and we are being transformed from glory to glory (2 Cor 3:17-18; Eph 4:16-17; Rom 8:29). But on the outside what we shall be in our glory-positions we do not know for sure because God will reward all of us in heaven according to the work of faith we do for Him on earth (2 Chron 15:7; Col 3:23-24), but just as Jesus came in the same appearance as he was in appearance before death physically, but with a meta-physical body of eternal glory, we shall also be in appearance with the same features retained to keep our identity identifiable to all the world with a eternal body that varies in glory according to the reward we will get from the Lord after that day we rise again in our glorious meta-physical body (Luke 24:36-43; 1 Thess 4:14-17; 1 Cor 15:41-44).

Every child of God who is born again and have this hope to rise up in the glorious body, will purify themselves to inherit the reward that God has prepared for those who serve Him (Eph 2:10; Rev 3:11). Then it is saying that sin is the transgression or breaking of God's perfect law and "whosoever sinneth" as the devil who had done it from the beginning of time without any conviction, in pride and rebellion, without repentance towards God belongs to the same devil who is working through them (Eph 2:1-2).

But Jesus was manifested to take away the sins of the believers, and therefore a believer cannot sin in present continuous tense as the unbelievers do because the seed of God who is the Holy Spirit remains in them to convict them of sin and restrain them from it (John 16:7-14; 14:17; 2 Thess 2:7).

The devil took a conscious choice without any external influence to reject God's authority and took one third of heaven's angels along with him when he was thrown out of heaven (Isa 14:13-15; Ezek 28:16-17; Rev 12:3-4, 9). Since that day he fell down from heaven along with other rebellious angels, he along with his others angels have been sinning because they do not have the ability to stop sinning (John 10:10). Adam under the influence of Satan has got deceived in to sin, and human kind has been sinning from that time onward having no ability to resist and overcome sin (Rom 3:23; 5:19). By one Man's righteous act all those who believed Him to be their Lord and Savior became righteous because God have declared them righteous not only by forgiving all their sins, but also giving them His very own righteous nature to work righteousness which He has prepared for them to do (Rom 5:16, 18-19; Eph 2:10).

This shows that all believers are righteous not because they work righteousness but because they have been made righteous in Christ Jesus with a new nature put within them by God which has given them the ability to do righteousness which actually God works by His strength. The only thing that the believer should do now is to submit their will to God moment by moment, which is their cross God has given them to carry to receive eternal reward for it in heaven (Luke 9:23-24). To co-operate with what God works within to let ourselves work it out by His power will what will brings us true eternal reward of salvation (Php 2:12-13). Works done after salvation by the power of our human will and strength are dead works which will bring no eternal reward for us (Heb 6:1; 9:14).

In other words, God Himself has guaranteed all believers that because Jesus the Son of God has come with a purpose to destroy evil works of the devil, God the Father who has made all believers righteous in Christ Jesus says that they will have the ability to do righteousness which they will do in various degrees according to the level of cooperation with the Holy Spirit for which they will receive a mighty eternal future reward from God (2 Cor 5:21; 1 John 5:4).

Thus it is a misinterpretation of speaking out of context to say that if someone is born again, they will stop committing sin altogether. This type of thinking will only make so called righteous Pharisees out of the believer who needs humility to acknowledge their fallibility to any sin (1 John 1:8; James 4:5-10; Gal 6:1-5).

Much Blessings....

Did Paul Hypocritically Practice The Law And Tradition Which He Preached Others Not To Do?

Why Apostle Paul Needed A Hair-Cut Vow?

Question : Brother, I have one doubt in Acts 18:18, which says Paul had his hair cut off at Cencherea because of a vow he had taken. Could you please explain me why he need a hair cut?

Answer: Greetings to you in Jesus wonderful name! Apostle Luke the first historian of the Church writes about vow-haircut details that Paul the apostle did in Acts 18:18 about which he revealed saying, "So Paul still remained a good while. Then he took leave of the brethren and sailed for Syria, and Priscilla and Aquila were with him. He had his hair cut off at Cenchrea, for he had taken a vow.". Luke does not say exactly what the vow is openly, but it most likely refers to a religious vow which according to the Jewish Law, is a way of expressing thanks in devotion towards God (Psa 56:12).

The Bible never prohibits people to take a vow but it only says that it is totally foolish to take one and not fulfill that which was promised to be fulfilled towards God (Eccl 5:4; Matt 5:33-37). Bible advises people rather not to make a vow rather than to make one and not fulfill it (Eccl 5:5; James 5:12). The law of Moses also reveals the same thing when it says, "21 “When you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay to pay it; for the LORD your God will surely require it of you, and it would be sin to you. 22 But if you abstain from vowing, it shall not be sin to you. 23 That which has gone from your lips you shall keep and perform, for you voluntarily vowed to the LORD your God what you have promised with your mouth. " (Deut 23:21-23). Moses spoke about it in details when he said, "If a man makes a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind himself by some agreement, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth." (Num 30:2). The whole chapter of Numbers 30 is all about the do's and don'ts of vow or oath taking towards the Lord.

Vow is made using a material or symbolic gift returned to God as a sign of gratitude for what He does for a person (Psa 76:11). When someone says that a particular thing is holy, it belongs to the Lord, or it is given as a payment of gratitude to the Lord once they receive favor from Him (Prov 20:25). When going through impossible deathly situations of life, a person who appeals to the Lord to help him, and promises to return something or someone in return for the favor he receives from Him is what is known as a vow (Psa 66:14; Job 22:27). All the vow-gift that are returned back to God goes to His temple for the work of the ministry of God that are done through it (Psa 66:13; 116:14-19).

It is a sin to break the vow made to the Lord (Deut 23:21-23), every one who have sinned by breaking his oath unlawfully during the Old Testament time have to offer the trespass offering to the Lord to receive forgiveness from the Lord (Lev 5:4-13). Also there was a special vow that people took to separate themselves for the holy use in the Lord's service and devotion towards Him that was described as Nazarite vow, that is when either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazarite, to separate himself to the Lord,...All the days of his vow of separation, no razor shall touch his head. Until the time is completed for which he separates himself to the Lord, he shall be holy. He shall let the locks of hair of his head grow long (Num 6:1-5).

When Jewish men were under a Nazarite vow, normally lasting 30 days and rarely beyond 100 days, or in short periods of mourning [see early Jewish commentaries on Leviticus 10:6] only then did Jewish men refrain from going to a barber. And interestingly, during the time Jewish men would let their hair grow [not to lengths like the hair of women], they were forbidden by God to enter His Temple like that.

While under a Nazarite vow these men devoted themselves to contrition and humility (even shame for some of their actions), and they were required to stay out of God’s Temple during their vow. God would not allow such men letting their hair grow to come before Him in the Temple. But when their period of “shame and contrition” was over, God allowed them to cut their hair at the threshold of the Temple and then, with the sacrifice of an animal and other purification rites, they could then re-enter the Temple.

If that kind of vow is what Paul had taken, then Paul might have vowed that for certain days or months that he would not cut his hair but would give thanks to God and worship him. If that is the reason, probably he would have fasted during this period, refraining from certain foods (1 Cor 7:5-7). At the end of the those days or months he would have cut his hair, having fulfilled his vow.

Paul the apostle always taught that keeping the law was not a salvation requirement, but can be a way of relating to such Jewish people who keep the law. Here is what apostle Paul himself says about his way of life, " 19 For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; 20 and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; 21 to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; 22 to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. 23 Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you." (1 Cor 9:19-23).

The above verse clearly gives us a idea why Paul must have taken vows to keep the law of God even though he was teaching the Gentiles not to follow the law of Moses in order to please God, but walk in the Spirit to live a empowered life of victory and therefore receive great eternal reward (Gal 5:1, 16, 25). Even at the end of his ministry among Gentiles, when God revealed that he must go to Jerusalem and then to Rome, Paul took four men who have taken a vow already to the temple under the instruction of Apostle James and all the elders to make sure that no Jews get offended by the doctrine he had already preached to the Gentiles all over the world (Acts 21:15-30). Years before he took Timothy his apostolic son in the Lord to the temple to make him get circumcised so that it would be easy for him and his apostolic company of people to witness to the Jews who keep the law, who would not normally have any communication with those who do not keep the law and tradition (Acts 16:1-3). But this kind of outreach of becoming all things to all men did have its setback when some of the false brethren tried to bring them back in to bondage to the law and as a result of it Titus being a Greek was compelled to be circumcised (Gal 2:1-10). Paul was clear about the gospel of Jesus Christ which was committed to Him by the personal revelation given to him by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and have clearly told that salvation is a free gift of God from the first day received to the last day lived on this this planet earth (Rom 5:16-19; 6:23), and therefore all humans can only receive by faith in Christ Jesus this free gift of salvation, and therefore the benefits of salvation might get restrained from the believers if after salvation they try to perfect themselves further through keeping the customs of the law (Eph 2:8; Gal 1:11-12; 5:2-4; 3:3).

So from the above exposition we come to understand that Paul cut His hair and kept the vow to make sure all the Jews could relate with him to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ and be saved through faith in Christ Jesus which is the only way for them to get saved from sin (John 8:24; Gal 3:28). At the same time being a born Jew, he would have loved to keep his fleshly appetite under check through fasting and prayer (1 Cor 9:27). This was not done to please God, but to be effective in overcoming sin, overcoming demonic opposition, increase in faith through obedience and be devoted towards the Lord Jesus to fulfill His purpose for his life (Matt 17:19-21; Mark 2:19-20; Acts 1:9; 13:2-3; 14:23).

We also know that many in the pagan religion do the same and give their hair to their so called gods when they have taken a vow, and the fulfillment of their plea comes true. Where ever there is a original God has spoken about in the Bible, Satan as a angel of light wants to replicate it to form man made religions to distract people away from the true God of the Bible (2 Cor 11:13-15; Jer 44:17; Isa 2:20).

In traditional Hindu societies, women do not cut their hair as this is what beautifies a woman and gives her dignity. Therefore, when hair is given as a offering, it is given as an act of devotion towards their deities. Men also make hair offerings as an act of devotion. People in Hindu religion go to the place of pilgrimage, there they have the hair cut/shaving done which are offered to the temple as part of an offering to fulfill some promises they made on some difficult periods or on some sufferings. A Hindu widow after her husband's death, in the past was forced to shave her head in line with Hindu tradition to make the society understand that she is a widow to humiliate her and even a evil custom named as 'Sati' [i.e. burning of the wife who is alive with the dead body of husband] were stopped by missionaries who fought against these customs and made it a crime under the law of the land with the help and effort of the government, now it rarely happens only here and there rarely and sporadically because of the society getting educated through the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Biblical law from the British influence of the past.

So Paul's hair cut is in no way a pagan ritual, or any Jewish ritual that he practiced for salvation of his soul, instead it was just a way in which he related himself to the Jews to make them understand the gospel and also keep himself fit spiritually against the fleshly indulgence that threatens every man to make them purposeless and move away from the perfect will of God (Isa 58:6-9; Rom 12:2).

Much Blessings....