Martha, Mary and Lazarus

"When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
"Where have you laid him?" he asked. "Come and see, Lord," they replied.
Jesus wept. "
João 11:32-35 (NVI)

This episode tells us about three brothers: Martha, Mary and Lazarus. Taking them by figure, I would like to bring a teaching.

Lazarus - the brother who was dead.

Martha - is the one that said: Lord, it's been four days and it has a bad odor already . She did not believe that Jesus could do something for her brother.

Mary - instead of expressing any word, was willing to cry.

Many times we look to the situation of the lost (the dead) around us, and say: It smells bad, there's no way to save them. The attitude that moved Jesus and set him in motion to bring life to that young man who was dead, was the attitude of Mary.

Mary fell down at his feet and wept; when he saw her, Jesus was moved by the Spirit, and moved toward the grave to call Lazarus out. Most of the apparitions of Mary in the Bible is prostrate down at his feet: attentively listening to Jesus once, again breaking the vase of ointment, and again in this text.

In this episode, a crowd followed Mary and found Jesus, and many came to believe in him. The work that produces result is to prostrate. The work that produces result is weep before him in favor of someone. Thus, He moves, He acts, He calls, He resurrects the one who was dead!


Stay in the peace of Jesus Christ!
Saulo.

I know nothing, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified

1 Corinthians 2:1-5. “And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power.”.

Preaching the Gospel has nothing to do with personality. Preaching the Gospel has nothing to do with methods. Preaching the Gospel has nothing to do with individual talents. Preaching the Gospel has to do with only one thing: Jesus Christ, and him crucified.


Paul, one of the greatest evangelists of all time, didn't use any evangelization method of those we consider the fundamental ones. Paul didn't mask the message with emotional appeals. Paul did preach the one thing that was scandal: Christ, and him crucified. Paul experienced the cross, and about that cross he spoke; crucified with Christ, he allowed the life of Jesus to flow through him.

Stay in the peace of Jesus Christ!
Saulo Oliveira Santos.

The blood of Abel cries out...

"If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it." Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" "I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper?" The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground."
(NIV) Genesis 4:7-10

Adam, the first man, whose name translation from Hebrew means literally "man", had at first two children, Cain and Abel. Adam typifies the humanity, but the humanity apart from God, the fallen humanity.

Adam had two male children. Adam had two first fruits of his manhood. See that the first fruit of the generation of Adam, on the other hand, has become a murderer. Cain killed Abel for being envious that God accepted his brother's offer but not his own. Abel, in turn, also a fruit of Adam, wanted to please the Lord, and sought to offer God the best part. The act of Cain turned him into a wanderer drifter on the earth.

This two sons of Adam, typifies, by what I can see, all the other sons of Adam. Inside our human nature, there is the wanting to know and please God. But inside our human nature, there is also the wanting to produce evil.

Paul has spoke about that in the letter to the Romans, when he said:

"So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?"
(NIV) Romans 7:21-24

Cain and Abel, this human nature, still fight inside of us, the men, and Cain is inside of us, and he is always killing Abel. But the blood of Abel always cries out before God. The mankind longs for the presence of God a for the justice of God.

But Paul follows:

"Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh,"
(NVI) Romans 7:25, 8:1-3

This battle ends in Jesus Christ. The blood of Abel finds rest. Its crying is heard. We don't need any longer to live this battle inside us, because Jesus Christ with His blood redeemed all the sin, and condemned all flesh in the cross, but when he rose, he rose to give us life, and a full and abundant life. We don't need to walk in this earth as a drifter, like Cain had. Though we can move in the heavenly places, in Jesus Christ, and experience that the joy of the Lord is our strength.

We can confess before God those things that belong to the nature of Cain; those things that lead us into and open the door so that our old nature be feed and manifested. Though, in our heart, we know we need to be close to God. The blood of Abel cries out, but Jesus want to give us deliverance today.

God wants us to live the full life, the abundant life in Him, in a way that we don't need any longer to cry, to mourn and to walk as drifters on this earth. We can, instead, be salt, light, and walk accordingly to the purpose of God.

Stay in the peace of Jesus Christ!
Saulo Oliveira Santos.

The church is the cure

"Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, "But we knew nothing about this," does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?"
Proverbs 24:11-12 (NIV)

The church is the cure that God provides to the sickness of the world. We are the only ones that can truly avoid eternal death and condemnation. Let the light of God shine through us today.

Stay in the peace of Jesus Christ!
Saulo Oliveira Santos.

Evangelism in the public jail

"For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. "

Ephesians 2:10

Yesterday our team of evangelization was visiting a jail of our city, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ in the female ward of that institution.

It's sad to see how the devil destroys entire families through criminality. There were some young women, some mothers, and still some grandmothers , deprived of their social life and their families. We do not ignore that they are all there for a fair reason, as a result of their mistakes, but they are souls in great pain and distress, created in the image and resemblance of God, but living a life without hope and peace.

In that brief moment we were there, sixteen souls surrendered to Jesus Christ and confirmed their faith in Him. The love of God, faith, hope; the light of the world came there. Instead of discussing and criticizing the situation of prisons and jails, rather than reading the criminal section of our newspapers, the church's role is to go to where they are groaning and hungry for the presence of God.

Besides being aware of the news, it lies in our hands to make the news, and transform the world around us by the power of the Holy Spirit of God, even though one person at a time. Cry out to God for an awakening in your spirit, cry out to him for revival, and rejoice in being willing to do the good works that He has called us to do. His Joy is our strength.

Stay in the peace of Jesus Christ!

Saulo Oliveira Santos.

Not called?

Salvation army bell

'Not called!' did you say? 'Not heard the call,' I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters, and servants and masters not to come there. And then look Christ in the face, whose mercy you have professed to obey, and tell him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish his mercy to the world. (William Booth)


Stay in the peace of Jesus Christ.
Saulo Oliveira Santos.

There is only one Gospel

"There is only one Gospel, not two, not three or half dozen, but only one. Not one for this organization and another for that other, not one for the primitive Church and another for today, not one for the preacher and another for the church member, but one Gospel that doesn't change, from a God that doesn't change.

Paul the apostle said: "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God's curse!" (Galatians 1:8).

The text says: "He makes (…) his servants flames of fire“ (Hebrews 1:7 NIV), nnot an imitation, not merely a promoter of religious theories, but a flame of fire, which returns to men the things that God had to be the most precious things for which he paid such a great price. The cold intellectual discourses that demand the respect of the world will never serve to address the needs of this critical hour.

(...)

The non-inspired theology with his pale orthodoxy says, "Yes, I know the Bible says so, but look at the failures around us."

The inspired men cry, "Let God be true, and every human being a liar" (Romans 3:4).

The Word is true, all that is needed for it to be fulfilled is someone who believes in it. Men may be saved, they can be filled with the Spirit, they can be healed as the days in the past.

He is the same today, yesterday and for ever."

From the book "Este poder puede ser suyo", Tommy Hicks, www.peniel.com, pages 20 and 21.

Stay in the peace of Jesus Christ!

Saulo Oliveira Santos