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Empty Pot

Why do you throw the jar in your bin? It is empty! Oh! That is why every dead is put in grave or burn to ashes to keep the air pollution-free. Man or woman is subject of love, honor, and affection and of fondling. We love our dear ones, and we love more than anything else. When they die, immediately we get busy to burry or burn the dead. It is clear that the dear one is not indwelling in that earthen pot. “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” 2cor 4:7 People do use jars made with clay for water, molasses, and rice; mostly liquid materials. Almost all the jars of same sizes cost at same rate. When those are filled with the costly materials, immediately, the prices of the jars get upgraded as per the content. Sometimes, the indwelling Holy Spirit leads us for the glory of our Father in heaven. A born again person acts in place of the living Lord, as he is already created in the image of God and to represent Him- the invisible God. Practically, at the time of creation, they were called to cover up and rule over the created world. That is natural and approved by the divine plan of the supreme Creator, the merciful God. Sometimes, man become possessed by the ark enemy- the Satan, resulting, they start playing obnoxious role to defame the Holy and pious God. That is unwanted and abnormal case. The Lord Jesus Christ, the pinnacle of love and holiness, had come to expiate the sin of the world, at the cost of His unblemished blood. He came to save and protect all who comes to Him by faith. He loves all. Have you ever tasted Him? You have every opportunity and option to come near to Him, talk to Him and ask Him to solve all of your disputes with Him or with the fellow brethren around you. Just come to Him by faith, and this is the way without alternatives.(This article has been published in the magazine “The weekly Alor Foara” on 2 June, 07)

By: John Mark
Category: My Blog

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Strategy of Evangelism in the context of Bangladesh

THE STRATEGY OF EVANGELISM IN THE CONTEXT OF BANGLADESH Rev. John Mark (Wahab)
A single drop of rain or even a single shower can't make a stream or creek. To make a flowing river continuous rain is absolutely necessary. Our country is like a desert in the area of the knowledge in the Gospel, the God's word. Though all people were created in the image of God through the same line of Adam, the first man, yet they have turned away from Him, ignoring the God-given, principles required to be believed in the Holy One. Sometimes many people with different attitudes are found in the society. These people flatly deny the fact that the people of the whole world were created to love one another and bring glory to Him alone.People of the world are somehow acquainted to someone called the Supreme Being who, at the remote, pivots the mechanism of the cosmos. But they have no clear conception of Him. It is as if, some blind people have observed an elephant and thought different ideas about it touching it as a blindfolded man.God had started sharing His identity to His wayward but beloved children bit by bit. Finally He has revealed himself to the lost people, through His Son Jesus Christ, Who are the source of grace, power and holiness. He is the pinnacle of Love and perfection. Anyone can really trust in Him without any argument or doubt. He manifested himself to be trustworthy to His disciples at the cost of his own life on shedding His blood. He is the living love expressed and incarnated God. In any country, among any group of people there are several doors or windows to enter into people's lives. For example, you can make contact to any person using your five sense organs. In the cultural context of Bangladesh to manifest the undefiled unique love of God before the unreached people you would have a lot of wide-open opportunities. In the city of Athens, the apostle Paul could find out such a contact point in the area about the idols and one to an unknown god to manifest the love of our Lord Jesus Christ even among the hordes of godless people. Apostle Paul was touched and led by the Holy Spirit. Are you being urged by the same Spirit to evangelize and saturate the world with the saving message of the Lord Jesus Christ? Think yourself, as if you were in a room without any source of light, you wouldn't be able to see anything around you. Please try to light up a lamp, anywhere in the society, whatever feeble it is, immediately it would start illuminating the area resulting in amazing possibilities. So without light you are as if dead in a so beautiful world that God made and said "it is good". People are the best of God's creation. Please try to understand them and behave accordingly in a manner that honors the Lord Jesus Christ. Only the accursed Satan makes them ugly whispering heinous plots in their minds. It is God alone who takes all the steps to make them free from their sinful and deteriorated state. Jesus Christ is the only answer to all of these problems. The dealers of any commodity try to introduce the products to the consumers. They manifest it, explain its utility, longevity, versatility, durability etc. to make the consumers understand and convince of the same. The evangelists and the truly committed believers of the only Redeemer of the sinners, Jesus Christ, should leave no stone unturned to make him acquainted to the unreached people. They should help people to come to the Lord and to be united with one another. He came to gather whatever was lost and scattered away. The dim impact of the age-long evangelical ventures proved the process pessimistic, discouraging, illogical and unreasonable.

But the message of the Gospel and the life of Jesus Christ is unique. His love is unique at the stage of his pinnacle, his holiness is incomparable; his compassion is unbound by the framework of human knowledge and perception. His entire life is the vivid picture of the invisible God.

It is the way of the presentation of His message that matters. The foreign missionaries should also endeavor to introduce the Message apart from the culture, as the gospel itself represents the Living Lord Jesus Christ, the unique Redeemer. He had translated the love of God and manifested His plan to save the world at the cost of His holy and unblemished life. If someone tries his best to introduce his own culture instead of the living Lord, of course, there would be an ulcer in that society.One could by the Grace of God carefully study the words of God and may come to a living faith. God speaks to the believers and unbelievers through His Living Words & also inspires and guides them by the work of the Holy Spirit to bring about conversion and sanctification. It is not the social structure of the society but the attitude of the people that is to be changed into that of the compassionate Lord which may then affect the attitudes and actions of a society. He died not for the Christians alone, but also for the sinners of the whole world to make them Christ's own. His path may be smooth and even, but some pastors, for their selfish end, made that sometimes uneven and complicated. The Lord asked every believer to worship the heavenly Father in the Spirit & truth. The Spirit means contrary to the physical being & truth means contrary to the falsehood. There is no need to delight the nostril of the Living Lord by burning incense, because He sees the hearts and prefers its purity of the devotees. He demands our hearts should be holy as that of the Father in heaven. We may like and plant many kinds of different trees because we have tasted the fruits of those trees. We dislike some of those because neither they are good for wood nor for fruits. So it is true to say that the trees are known by its fruits. We prefer someone responsible, faithful & hardworking than other lazy people who are of no use. We would say in the context of Bangladesh, that if we sincerely want to evangelize our people, we must not harm them but love & help them. We must be impartial in our attitude, as the Lord did love all the people impartially. Our goal should not be tearing the individual apart from the society or family, but help him to be adjusted with them. The believer is to be a light to remove darkness. So that it is kept and set in the midst of darkness. The believers in the Living Lord Jesus Christ are called the Light of the world, as He Himself is the Unique light of the world. They are His emissaries - so it is obvious - they must be put in the heart of the society, so that the whole society may receive light & be illuminated. We must understand the strategy of battle. No single shower can make a creek or stream of water in the desert or even in an oasis. To make any flowing creek or river constant & continuous heavy showers are needed. In the knowledge of the saving message countries like Bangladesh are as deserts. Some of them have ideas about the living Lord but those are erroneous, partial & imperfect. We can follow the strategy that Apostle Paul did use in the city of Athens when he preached about the statue to the unknown god. He did not criticize them bitterly rather with love & respect opened his mouth and explained the truths about the living God.Islamic people know something about Jesus Christ. In the Koran many truths about Him are told including his, virgin birth, his holiness, power over disease, death and Satan and truths to do with the last or final Day of Judgment when they recognize that Christ will return. Careful study will help the believers to point out the contradictory & erroneous statements are found in the same book always with grace and humility. If someone knows Jesus Christ perfectly in the Holy Bible, he would be able to detect the wrong teachings being professed about Him and the Truth in other books. It is like that type of detection of the currency; you must know the legal tender to distinguish the forged tender. Jesus Christ is the incarnate love of God for the fallen human being. He came to redeem the sinners, not to condemn them. He is here to set up peace in the hearts of the people that the world has no capacity to offer. He is the only way back to the Father in heaven.We must saturate our country by the teachings of the Living Lord Jesus Christ - the saving message - the only Gospel. The gospel is not only a book but also the living and walking inspiration of God's mind and heart. When people are changed into His likeness then the goal of the evangelism would be successful. We may come in contact with the notorious persons not to enhance their devilish activities but to see them transformed into the attitude and character of the living and loving Lord Jesus Christ. We should not introduce any culture or social environment that would maroon them from the larger existing society. God doesn't demand any social, physical or cultural activities to worship Him. His demand is that He must be worshipped in Spirit & Truth. Both are immaterial. Spirit is the Holy Spirit that convinces a person to have a new attitude that our Lord does possess.And Truth is God's absolute truth & revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ- we can't attain these qualifications from any institutions in the world or buy them at any cost from the whole materialistic world. The power of the Holy Spirit is a gift of God available to the people who do repent as a depraved sinner.The Word of God is good for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.We must wait for the harvest to be given in God's time. It is good optimistic scene in Bangladesh. But if someone waits even a thousand years without cultivation or sowing seeds in the field, that waiting would be foolishness for him. For last 25 years we have been cultivating the land and sowing the seeds, and now is the time to enjoy and have a bumper harvest.

By: John Mark
Category: My Blog

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LOVE DEMANDS SACRIFICE

very victim of the natural catastrophe and torrential flood would admit that drinking water becomes scares during that period. Fields, roads, houses, sources of drinking water, everything goes under and gets sunk into water, yet that slogan of acute shortage of water should apparently be ridiculous. But that is the fact.

The present world is full of people. We have assets beyond counting. Every day lot of foodstuffs is thrown into garbage because of the shortage of consumer in those areas. But do they try to look at the hungry people dying every day in other parts of the planet? Do they have time to look into the matter carefully? You can force a horse in a tank but you have no capacity forcing it to drink. It is fact, in Bangladesh lot of local and expatriate missionaries, have cultivated our soil i.e. people with the plough of the Gospel as they do claim, and have already gained bumper harvest. They send fantastic, fabulous and fallacious reports to the donor agencies to draw sympathy for their fiction.

About 140 million of people live in Bangladesh. Still the number of the Christian population is below a single percent. They are microscopic minority that means .03%. But if you compile their annual reports, being submitted to the donor agencies, you would be astonished. Those reports are for reports without reality. The money they receive is being used for their own benefit. We know lot of cases; some people collect fabulous amount of money in the name of mass evangelism and spent that money against their personal kingdom leaving the donor agencies in the mask and darkness.

We think, it is better for the concerned authority to investigate into the cases thoroughly in order to find the fact. Only the Truth of God- Jesus Christ makes people free from all sorts of bondage’s (John 8:32).

In every circumstance we must stand for and abide in Him for highlighting the Truth- Jesus Christ to be successful in His field (John 15:5).

Should we not learn better lessons from the Pioneer Evangelists who have started such a great and long lasting movement depending solely upon the power of the Living Lord Jesus Christ? At that time there was no fund flow as we do have nowadays. The presence, power and blessings of the Holy Spirit strengthened them to reach unto that mark. It is God who does build His House. The Lord Jesus Christ has already sanctified it by His unblemished blood and the Holy Spirit maintains and guides them up day to day towards the Father in heaven.

A lamp is being maintained to shine a room by nighttime. The present world is quite negative and opposite to the original plan of the merciful Creator – God. We are the chosen people to work in His vineyard. All of the fruits, credit and glory belong to Him alone.

Let us commit ourselves to the living Lord to become completely new persons. Let us devote our entire gifts and talents to bring our beloved countryman, by the power of the Holy Spirit, into the splendid kingdom of light of our Lord out of the eternal darkness and damnation.

We commit our all branches of evangelical works and the Bible College in the mighty & miraculous hands of our Lord to bring His glory. God made us responsible for one another. Any individual believer or evangelical agency is like a single hook of a complete chain. Loss of its any single hook means total chain becomes out of order.

We send our heartfelt love to you all. May His kingdom and Righteousness be established here in Bangladesh?

Please join us to pray for His Kingdom.

By: John Mark
Category: My Blog

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