Love Your Neighbor

December 10, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

Christmas x Consumerism

Dear brothers, everyone must have realized that the posts I have been writing in December have been focusing on the holiday season and on issues related to the fact that 2020 is coming. I believe the title of this post could not be more self explanatory. Particularly, I love Christmas for several reasons. It is a date when we remember the birth of Jesus (even though no one knows precisely the correct date). It’s vacation time. Time to reunite with family. Time to enjoy good times with the people we love. Gift giving In my family we have a tradition of exchanging gifts. And I know this is a common practice in many other families in the world. I do not see this as an obligation, but a time where I am very happy to be able to give gifts to people that are important to me. Yes, I love receiving gifts. But surely my greatest pleasure in these moments is much more in “giving” than “receiving”. However, as with everything else, the world has managed to misrepresent even the act of giving gifts. A beautiful gesture was turned into something without limits. Christmas ends up being remembered as a […]

love-your-neighbor

November 20, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

A study about Jonah

When I was about six or seven years old I always went to church classes while my parents attended the service. I always listened to some occasional stories about Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and David, but surely one that always caught my attention was that of Jonah. After many years, already converted, I read the book of this prophet a few times to deepen. It is interesting how much of the teaching we can draw from a four-chapter book and apply it to our Christian life. The purpose of this text is to facilitate the brothers’ understanding of history and to offer a reflection for our life from the issues involved in the text. The summary of the book of Jonah Jonah was a prophet, someone who knew the Lord and was already “a messenger of God” in the Old Testament. His mission was to go to Nineveh, a large city that was very corrupted by wickedness and sin.The prophet tried to escape God’s presence and embarked on a journey to Tarshish and away from the purpose for which the Lord had called him. Along the way a great difficulty appeared through a storm sent by the Lord. There is a […]

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November 07, 2019·Gabriela Angerami

Love with actions ♥

These days I was listening people sharing on the radio generous actions they usually do at the end of the year. It was pretty cool to hear such different ideas on how to do something good for someone else. On the commemorative dates of this time of the year, people are more proactive in help others and be generous. That made me think about generosity and that we as God’s children need to love with actions all year long. So I decided to share with you a reflection on 3 points about generosity in John 3:16. John 3:16 (NIV) – For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 1) When you are generous you express God’s nature “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…” In this passage we see that He so loved the world. The term “so” has the meaning of intensity. Then God’s intense love for us resulted in giving His son. This makes clear that one of the forms of expression of God’s love is generosity. God’s nature is generous. In Him […]

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October 23, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

We are one in Christ

I confess that it took me a long time to decide what to write on the blog this week. When I prayed in the morning, I felt like writing about the following passage: Ecclesiastes 4:9 Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. We always use this passage to talk about the importance of friendship and not walking alone. But today I believe God brought me a new revelation from the same text. The importance of walking together in equality. We are all one in Christ as it is written in Galatians 3:28 (There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.) We live in a society that seeks self-satisfaction first. We have settled in our heads the constant competition with the other people around. Throughout our lives we are conditioned to always seek first place in relation to others and not to have a pure equality. This can happen in many areas of our life. Whether in search of a better position at work, or in search of greater prominence within our ministry. I am not saying that we should conform to the […]

love-your-neighbor

September 19, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

How to admonish a brother correctly

In recent weeks we have been dealing with such things as God’s rational love, the impossibility of walking alone, and how to be a good friend. Along the same lines, we must also learn how to correctly admonish a brother. That we may all be aligned with the will of God. Humility The first thing needed to admonish someone.Or to bear fruit from an exhortation for a brother is humility. In this is the recognition of our own mistakes and failures and the understanding that we have limited in wisdom. With this in mind, we learn to value other people’s wisdom. And we also begin to understand that it is more valid to admonish the brothers in those things we have already been purified. There is no use on me exhorting a sister about her gossip if I can’t control my tongue myself and I do the same thing. Phil 2:3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves. Biblical basis Along with humility, there must be a correct biblical knowledge. We should admonish others around us based on God’s Word. Exhort means to teach or encourage. If teaching or encouragement is […]

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September 12, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

Are you being a good friend?

Over the past few weeks I have covered topics in an attempt to show you a little of what I understand about the love we should have for each other. We learned about agape love and also reflected on how good friendships are important. Following this line of thought and this series of texts, I decided to talk about how to be a good friend in Christian ways. The only purpose The first thing to do is to understand the ultimate purpose of a Christian life. That comes down to being more like Jesus Christ. God does not just intend for us to imitate his son. But He wishes that through his sacrifice we will continue to be ever more like the Lord in a genuine way. Jo 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. Eph 4:13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. The friend on the walk When we understand the ultimate purpose, we […]

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September 05, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

Walking alone is impossible

This Wednesday I celebrated my twenty-fourth birthday. Yes, if you have not had this knowledge, I am just a young man who loves the Lord. But anyway, I didn’t come to talk about my celebrations. And yes, something that caught my attention when I received some messages. Even before this day I was thinking of writing about friendship. In my time living outside the church I was always surrounded by people. It has never been my personality to be someone who prefers to be alone. The problem that some people have already lived in the time they were estranged from the practice of the Christian faith is that friendships hardly are deep. As I mentioned in the last text, Christian love never demands anything in return. We surrender ourselves (at least we should) to the others as Christ did for us. And by understanding that people who do not practice love are not perfected in God constantly. We understand that there will hardly be an unconditional exchange in a friendship where Christ is not the center. Friendships Strengthen Christian Walk In a short time living inside the church, I found a family. I have made friends and started to reflect on […]

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August 29, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

The love of God

These days I’ve been a little restless. Some things in earthly life made me feel discouraged, and as a result, my energy to keep pace with prayers diminished a little. Glory to Jesus. Through the maturity He has given me, I can more easily see where my refuge is and the source of my joy. In the midst of this rather bad time, feeling anguished, I threw myself into Father’s arms. I turned off everything that could get in my way, turned off the lights, and cried for his peace. Humbled myself at his greatness and apologized for the lack of wisdom in not running right into his arms at the first opportunity. I opened my mouth and said out loud what was going on and why my heart was so heavy. At that moment I felt God talking to me about His genuine love for men. I was taken with virtue and peace. Ran to open my bible and began to try to understand more deeply what had just come to my mind at that moment of prayer. I decided to share some of this with you today. The concept of love Although we use the word “love” for […]

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August 12, 2019·Gabriela Angerami

Why is it so hard to forgive?

A few days ago I received an email from Barna Group, which is an American faith and culture research organization. This email motivated me to write this text. In the message, they released the results of a study on forgiveness and mercy that showed the following findings: One-quarter of practicing Christians says there is a person who they cannot forgive. Almost half of practicing Christians say mercy doesn’t influence their thoughts or actions or they haven’t thought about whether it does. One in five practicing Christians reports struggling to receive forgiveness for something they have personally done. Christians grapple with whether certain people deserve compassion or forgiveness, and they are not all that different from non-Christians when it comes to embodying merciful attitudes and actions. It is even contradictory to think that christians, that is, people who were reached by grace and who understood that they were forgiven through the sacrifice of Jesus, have difficulty in forgiving. But the data showed this sad reality. We also know that when someone hurts us, it really is not easy. Forgiveness is something supernatural As soon as Jesus rose from the dead and made his first visit to the disciples, he breathed the Holy Spirit upon them and […]

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July 11, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

Switching curses for blessings

I’ve been thinking a lot about how much the words we hear create things within us. I confess that I was never the person but attentive to the way of speaking during my life. When I gave myself to Christ, however, I began to police more about things that came out of my mouth. I find it most interesting to remember that God created the heavens and the earth declaring things. He did not use his powerful hands and he was not even joking to model some things. All of His power was manifested in matter through His words. “Let there be light”, “Let the earth produce herbs” among other phrases. Seeing that after creating all these things the Bible says that “God saw that it was good” is clear that through his words the Lord was creating blessings. The Greek word for “bless” is ευλογεω (eulogeu). That is a mixture between the words “speak” and “make prosperous or happy”. This shows that our speech has the power to create happiness and prosperity around us. But have we used this power only to create good things? Enough to complain! One of the evils I see most in the day-to-day among […]

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June 19, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

Do not force the gospel

If there is something I love to do, it is to be with people who are seeking the truth unceasingly. So it is common in my circle of friends to talk about church, bible and theological issues at all times. This week, conversing with a friend, I realized how often we overlooked the important point: We try to impute the gospel to the people around us at all times. This is the reason why endless debates about religion and doctrine begin. About the existence of God and his intentions towards man. I believe there is no one on earth who can claim to know all the dreams and ways of God. Let alone one who knows how He conducts His righteousness over creation. That way, I think it’s impossible to deploy something into someone’s heart by using our strength. In fact, I think that sometimes God gives us a lesson in this matter to know that we should not act on our own understanding. Even Paul (who is regarded by scientists today as having knowledge equivalent to four PhDs) emphasized that his understanding had no effect without the Spirit of God. 1Co 2:4 “And my speech and my preaching were […]

love-your-neighbor

April 09, 2019·Gabriela Angerami

Have you been choosing to love?

If we relate to people, we will eventually be upset, disapprove of something, or disagree with someone. It’s part of life! We are imperfect. What we need to understand is that instead of reacting to these situations of disagreement with our sinful instinct. That is, instead of losing reason, anger or resentment, we must choose to love. We need to respond to circumstances in a wise and balanced way, as people healed and well resolved in the Father. Love is a choice John 15:9 –As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. John 15:16 – You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. Jesus, throughout the entire 15th chapter of the book of John, invites us to abide in his love. What does that mean? It means that his love does not change, it will always be the same. It is as if he said, “My love is here available, I have loved you. Now it is up to you to remain in this love.” In verse […]

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