By Minister Sophia Parks Co-Founder

  “Are You Psychologically 

 Ready for the Journey?

             Have you determined who you are in Christ; victor, overcomer, more than an overcomer. This you must know beyond any doubt, because trials and tribulations will test your metal. The Lord will not put on us any more than we can bear, however, do you know how much you can bear? Of course you don’t know. Only the Lord knows your level of endurance. So prepare yourself for the journey, by establishing a  Statement of Faith or a set of values to live by. As your faith grows so should your value system advance. The statement is excellent to fall back on especially when you have researched and understand why you believe what you believe, when you are confronted with various schisms in the Body of Christ, new winds of doctrine, heresies and ungodly social norms of the day.  Confidence should have a large place of consideration in your faith statement.  

Are You Psychologically 

Ready for the Journey?

 Because you know or are learning about your place in Christ, you must trust that he has your best interest at heart. We know the scripture “I wish above all that you be in health and prosper even as your soul prospers”, but in the heat of afflictions and persecutions, do you still maintain confidence in the Lord and do you still have joy? You should be living such a Christian life that your very presence intimidates the unbeliever and carnal minded Christian. You can present a

spiritual force to be reckoned with, because by your personality you can subdue the evil spirits in people. Do people say; there is something special about you, I can’t put my finger on it, do people stop cussing and joking when you enter the area, even without you saying anything? As you grow in the Lord and become more like Him these things will happen.

In our personal statement of faith, we should know that the Lord will enhance our ability to analyze, solve and comprehend situations and circumstances that affect our lives

Are You Psychologically 

Ready for the Journey?

Basic Christianity

The bible is  the written word of God. An inheritance that was lost and restored; The bible tell us about  Adam and Eve and their descendants. We are among those descendants and we inherited the nature of Adam, fallen and at emnity with God because Adam chose to use his freewill to disobey God. But God had made provision for such an eventuality and the biblical record is nothing less than God's outline for reconciling fallen Man to Himself.

The gravity and extreme joy of the Christian journey is most poignantly expressed in the oft quoted bible passage, John 3:16, which begins "For God so loved the world..." Here we learn that God loved us, His Creations, so much that He was willing to sacrifice His only Son to save us.

As incredible as it seems, there was one thing that God Almighty did not know; He did not know, from experience, what it was like to be a Man. However, He was determined to remedy that. In line with both prophecy and Hebrew legal precedent, as in The Book Of Ruth, which explains that the recovery of a lost inheritance requires someone near of kin, both in possession of the price and willing to pay, God's Spirit made pregnant a young woman of the Tribe of Judah and thus put on a cloak of humanity by being born Jesus of Nazzareth.

 So here was Jesus, come into the world part Man - so as to be near of kin to us - and part God, so as to have the ability to acquire the price to be paid to restore that which Adam had lost. And what was that price? The Old Testament taught us that the only suitable sacrafice for sin was death, in the case of the Hebrews an animal, usually a Lamb without spot or blemish, was used as a substitute.  The Hebrew sacrifice only covered the people for one year.  So then, if Jesus was embody the price within Himself, He had to live the perfect, sinless life. It was only the part of Jesus that was God that allowed him to overcome temptation and be the spotless Lamb, sacrificed not just for one year but once for all.

As we learn in The Gospels, Jesus' ministry and life on Earth ended in them laying down of His blameless life in order to redeem our lost inheritance. And then, exerting the greatest power ever known, He arose from death and presented Himself to God The Father as payment for fallen Mankind. But not before He sent out into the world His disciples, whom we call The Apostles, to preach The Good News; That Man no longer needed to be at emnity with God but could, through Him, begin being conformed to His image and advance toward perfection.

One of the first things we should learn from The Apostles is that what they are preaching and commending to us is a relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, and not a religion. In a world filled with clannish and secretive religious structures, Jesus preached no ethic other than Himself. Neither Buddha, Mohammed, nor Confucius ever said”I am The way..." (John 14:6) Only Jesus made such a claim. Further, The Apostles taught us that Jesus would indwell us and with the power of The Holy Spirit – that same power which raised Him from among the dead (Romans 8:11) - begin to change us from the inside out. Our only duty then, is to maintain that relationship with God through Jesus Christ, at all costs.