New Life – The Christian Blog

The ‘S-A-L-V-A-T-I-O-N’ of Our Salvation

S – Save.

Jesus Christ came to die on the cross to save us. While we were born sinners, He came in the purest form through the conception of a virgin, lived a short but purposeful life, proving right all prophecies concerning his birth, death and resurrection. We get saved when we accept, believe and confess his Lordship over our lives.

A – Amazing

Amazing grace – that is what saved souls like you and I. We were once lost but this amazing grace found us. We were sick but now we are healed. We were powerless but by His amazing grace, we have the authority to stand against the devil and his cohorts.

L – Love

His death on the cross portrays nothing but the extent of His love for humanity. The Bible says,

‘For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life’ – John 3:16.

1 John 3:16 goes further to define ‘love’ as Jesus Christ laying down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

V – Victory

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ spells victory for us in the sense that He defeated death and Colossians 2:5 puts it like this;

In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.

This victory transcends to us when we accept Jesus Christ as our saviour. We become victorious over all negative situations – poverty, sickness and all complications in our lives. We overcome them through our salvation and live victoriously.

A – Awesome

His death and resurrection has created that awesome relationship between us and God once again. We, who were once sinners, through the deeds of one man, can call the God of perfection, our Father. We take over God’s nature once again through salvation – Colossians 2:13.

T – Thankful

We can be thankful to God for coming to die on the cross to save us from our sins. We can also show our appreciation by witnessing to others and depopulating hell. Let’s evangelise to others – through our way of life and words.

I – Incredible

Just cast your mind back to when God created the world and made man in His own image and righteousness. Throughout scriptures, there were prophecies made about His birth, death and resurrection and He came to fulfill each and every one of them. If this cannot be described as incredible, what else qualifies as such?

O – Outstanding

Our acceptance of the gift He has given us makes us outstanding, different and unique. Our lives begin to change the moment we accept Jesus as our Lord and personal saviour. Our speech, understanding of events and lifestyle begin to reflect this new life that we have:

This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! – 2 Corinthians 5:17

N- Noble

Can anyone’s death be described as noble? Yes, the saviour of the world’s death can be described as such and the result is our salvation.

You can only manifest these beautiful adjectives when you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and personal saviour. Have you accepted him yet? If you haven’t, what are you waiting for?

The New Life

This is the continuation of Unravelling the Mystery of Endless Prayer by Guest Blogger, Dr. Emmanuel Sogah. If you missed that interesting post, read it here.

Rev. Paul reminded Abu of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden and the state of man after the fall.

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.( Genesis 1:17)

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. (Genesis 3:6)

Using these scriptures as references, the Reverend Minister stressed that Adam did not die a physical death when he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil but rather died spiritually.

“To die spiritually means to be separated from God and have no means of communicating or fellowshipping with Him. Adam’s understanding darkened – he was alienated from the life of God (Ephesians 4:18),” Rev Paul said. “To die spiritually also means to see things differently (not from God’s perspective). Remember that Adam was naked from the day he was formed from the ground but suddenly became aware of his nakedness when he ate of the ‘forbidden’ tree (Genesis 3:7). His perspective changed – Adam began to relate with his environment from his senses.”

The first man, who expressed no sense of guilt in the presence of God, became timid and fled from the presence of God (Genesis 3:8). His ability to stand before God without the feeling of unworthiness was lost.

“That is the state of every man who hasn’t experienced the rebirth,” said Rev. Paul.

Apostle Paul in the Bible reiterates this when he said in the book of Romans 7:24.

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

“You’ve got to understand the depraved and helpless nature of a man without God. It’s such a sorry sight when you think about the end of such a fellow (Revelation 20:15),” said Rev, Paul

Abu began sobbing. He expressed such profound pain towards the unsaved world. He was, however, stopped by the pastor.

“Cheer up! Jesus has overcome,” said Rev. Paul.

He looked at Abu and wondered the number of people who would be ‘moved’ to tears when they learn about the sorry state of unbelievers.

With the encouragement from Rev. Paul, Abu received strength and began to ponder over the words of the Minister.

Reverend Paul continued,

For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10).

“Jesus brought hope to the unsaved world. He was the answer to Apostle Paul’s question in Romans 7:24,

who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

Abu noticed the change in the tone of Rev. Paul’s voice. He noticed the man was burning with passion as he spoke about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:3-4) and how he said ‘no man as yet has annulled this truth.’

By this act of sacrifice by Jesus, our fellowship with God has been restored and this has ushered us into the new life.

Learn more about the new life in the next post.

This post was written by Dr. Emmanuel Sogah. Dr. Sogah is a medical doctor by profession, a budding minister of the gospel who is passionate about teaching.

Unravelling the Mystery of Ceaseless Prayers

“Prayer must be very hard. I doubt I can ever pray like these people,”

These were thoughts of young Abu, a man who accepted Christ not too long ago, while he observed a group of believers praying in other tongues.

Abu was born into a typical African Traditional home and had heard tales of a particular faction of Christians – the Charismatics, who were aggressive when praying but this was his first time observing them.
He never thought praying could be this vigorous and perspiring, however, Abu made a remarkable observation.

These charismatic Christians prayed for several hours, more rigorously by the time, in a totally different language but they appeared refreshed throughout the process.

This scene kept playing in his mind while he sat in church the following Sunday. Mysteriously, his pastor’s sermon that dwelt on praying endlessly.

“To pray without ceasing, according to 1 Thessalonians 5:17, means to pray uninterruptedly,” said Reverend Paul to the joyous congregation who seem to understand what that meant.

“How can that be possible? I don’t think anyone can follow through with this,” Abu thought.

He grew increasingly confused but nurtured a desire to learn more about this ‘endless’ prayer.

This desire pushed him to interview Reverend Paul after close of service.

“Prayer simply means communicating with God but there’s more to it,” says the Reverend. “Prayer helps you to be conscious of your ‘new’ life in God and grants you means of receiving from Him.”

Conscious of my new life? Abu interjected.

Reverend Paul noticed it was a good time to dwell on the subject of the new life since that would allow Abu to grasp the subject of prayer better.

He invites Abu into his office so they could have a detailed discussion on the subject.

Find out how the conversation between the Reverend and Abu transpired in the next part of this post.

This post was written by Dr. Emmanuel Sogah. Dr. Sogah is a medical doctor by profession, a budding minister of the gospel who is passionate about teaching.