The Book of books

Bible belonging to Elvis Presley with handwritten notes by him.
Auctioned on the 35th anniversary of his death.

 If you struggle reading the Bible lately, and the words lost their meaning because you read them so many times, and "you know what that means" and so on, try this: Pray and ask Jesus to take the words straight to your inner self, your heart of hearts, without allowing them to get stuck in the interpretarions and jugdgements of your mind. Do not expect instant results but you will see that pretty soon life and joy come back to you. What the Word does to you is God's business, not yours, so let yourself go. Also remember that the primary purpose of reading the Bible is not to know the Bible but to know God. 

One of the notes written by Elvis in his in Bible:
To Judge a man by his weakest link or deed is like
 judging the power of the ocean by one wave.

 Men do not reject the Bible because it contradicts itself, but because it contradicts them. —Attributed to Charles Dickens

The immortal Book has survived three great dangers: (1) The negligence of its friends, (2) the warfare of its enemies, (3) and the false systems built upon it.—Isaac Taylor

Unless we form the habit of going to the Bible in bright moments as well as in trouble, we cannot fully respond to its consolations because we lack equilibrium between light and darkness.—Helen Keller
 
Out of 100 men, one will read the Bible, the other 99 will read the Christian.―D. L. Moody

Impressions of a Missionary, Chapter 2

My First Month and Nova Jerusalem

After this “grand” entrance at The Children of God, my first month seemed like a dream. We lived in a small apartment with a living room, a bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom. We were 6 boys and 1 Spanish girl, and I was the oldest one, 24 years old. The boys were from various nationalities being at least one from Angola (apart from me). All the boys slept in the living room and the girl slept in the room.

About one year after I joined

She would wake us up in the morning by playing usually the same tape starting with the typical song “Good morning God’s children, take a look outside, it’s a brand new morning, it’s a new life”. The girl was called Nova Jerusalem1 (There was a custom of choosing new names and that was the name she chose for herself). She was cheerful, had long curly black hair and a happy disposition. After a slight meal we would all leave to the streets of the Porto, two by two, to approach people and hand them the so called MO Letters and ask for a donation. (MO Letter: short publications that the founder of the Children of God, David Berg – also called Moses David – wrote to members and the general public).

Turn on the Light

Turn on the Light 

Newsletter, March 2014                      

Dear Friends
What impact these first 2 months of the year had on you? Please don't worry about the seemingly "bad things" that happened already, or the things that "could have been better". This year is going to be a blessed year; you just have to turn on the light.

Switching gradually our thoughts from bad to good may involve a lot of prayer and time with Jesus but it's well worth the effort. The book of Psalms it's always a positive influence for good. Many of those prayers in Psalms were actually prophetic prayers of Jesus (Psalm 16, Psalm 22, etc.; Acts 2:29-31; Acts 13:22). Jesus went through a lot of difficulties but He overcame the world (John 16:33) and He is inside of you so the force for good in you is stronger than the force for evil (1st John 4:4).

Prison Ministry

There is a group of prisoners that meet every Friday morning. They are about 30 men. First they sing, share testimonies of answers to prayer and of God's guidance in their lives. Then it's our turn to speak and share what we have for them.

If we count by numbers, what's 30 among 1,000 men? It's the seed of the Gospel and God is not limited by many or by few (1st Samuel 14:6). If we count the success by numbers then Jesus was a failure. The Son of God only manage to get 12 strong followers?! And He almost lost them after His sermon of drinking His blood and eating His flesh (John 6:25-71). That's what we told them last week.

A lunch bar, a bag of chips and a thank you note

A few days ago, I went to the prison to visit my friends. I decided not to preach at all, just sing with them and listen to what they say, watch, learn the songs, and even a bit of their language. No pressure for me or anyone else.

Around 10 am I had to tell them that unfortunately I couldn't stay any longer because I had an appointment that I could not miss. I said goodbye and one of them accompanied me to the patio and gave me on behalf of all a lunch bar and a packet of chips saying that he, on the behalf of all, just wanted to thank me for my visits and encourage me to continue to come. It was a gesture of gratitude sincere and profound.

But it wasn’t all. Half an hour before that, when we were still in the room and someone was reading and commenting on an interesting verse of the Bible (Ecclesiastes 7:16-18), a young man left his seat and came over to another man seating near me. I knew they were talking about me because they kept looking. I tried not to get involved nor pay much attention and instead focused on what was being discussed. Soon after that the man by my side handed me a piece of paper with the following message written in broken English: "we thank God with you are a blessing to us".

It was inspiring to read that and I realized what had happened. The boy approached the man beside me and asked him for a piece of paper because he wanted to write something for me. The only piece of paper was already scribbled with comments on the verse but nothing else was available. He wrote the message and asked the other to hand it to me.  It touched me to know that they were so thankful for my visitation.

I believe that they value the fact that I visit them much more than what I say to them, what they appreciate is the time I spend with them.

Life's Challenges

Speculations, Part 1

Dreams

Dreams are an incredible way that our Creator has to communicate with us. They should always be a source of gratitude and inspiration and never of worry. Dreams are blunt and can reveal things we hide from ourselves and others, and this can be a cause for shock or concern. What does the book of Job, in the Bible, says about dreams?

Job 33:14-17 God speaks in one way, and in two, though man does not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, while they slumber on their beds then he opens the ears of men and terrifies them with warnings, that he may turn man aside from his deed and conceal pride from a man;

On my troubled teenage years almost every night I would awake up with a terrifying dream. To interpret it I read all kinds of books and literature about dreams and it’s interpretations but I admit that it was a terrible waste of time and energy and I didn’t get the peace of mind I sought. It left me more worried and confused than ever. Until one day I read something very simple and childlike: “Dreams are either inspired by God or the devil”. Of course, to people that don’t believe in God or the devil it seems pure nonsense, but I grabbed that sentence and I stopped trying to interpret my dreams and letting them worry me.

Christmas CD / Cards

Christmas Treasures

Songs:
Christmas Tresures Medley
Jingle Bells
Noel
Run with Torches
Unto You is Born this Day
O Holy Night
Let the Whole World Know
Christmas Praises
Glory to God in the Highest
Come and See Jesus
O Little Town of Bethlehem
Away in a Manger
What Will You Give Me?
You Only Left Heaven for Love
Oh, Jesus Come into My Heart
Silent Night

This is just a sample, we have a great variety of CD titles and cards.