JFA Blog

Reflections, studies and news for your walk with God.

October 10, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

Be like a child

On October 12, we celebrate the children’s day in Brazil. And while this date is really focused on children, I thought I’d bring to this blog a comment about a sermon from Jesus about the importance of being like them. The text is well known. Many people, however, take it literally and believe that Jesus really was talking about little children. But in this study we will see what the Lord actually meant by this passage: “At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Mt 18:1-6) […]

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October 03, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

Overcoming the concern

We all know, or should know, that being a Christian is not a promise of easy living. On the contrary, when we are on the path of truth, many things seem to come against us to divert our attention from the focus, which is Jesus Christ. And when I say the focus is Jesus, I have in mind the constant thought of obeying and pleasing the Father. Having full faith that the Son of God has given Himself for us. He has already acquitted us of all our sins and pains, giving us the possibility to live, through the Holy Spirit, the Kingdom of God. A place where there is no crying, sadness or unrest. The biggest “problem” is that even though we have been reborn in Christ, we still live in a body of flesh. This body of ours is corrupted by sin and is unable to choose God’s will. This is why Paul says in the letter to the Galatians that we strive to walk constantly in the Spirit. Now, walking in the Spirit is nothing but living with our conscience focused on Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Galatians 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, […]

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September 26, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

Do not give up!

The days have passed very fast. Sometimes I find myself wondering even if the earth has rotated faster than normal. See, we are already closing the month of September! (When I was younger it didn’t seem like time ran as fast as it does today). Unlike other days, I will not post text about exhortations or my theological reflections. I’m going to talk about suicide. This is a much discussed theme in this “yellow september” that it is used to make people aware of something that can sometimes be happening under our eyes without we seeing it. Depression Many brothers who read my texts here may have already seen that I was, in fact, recently converted. That before I was an atheist and denied the existence of God for some years. What few know is that I had a moment of depression in my life and some thoughts of death came to mind at that time. However, this is not unique to atheists. Depression is not a lack of God, as I see many believers saying all the time. I have seen people very used by God go into crises of deep sadness, what is very painful. Trying to explain […]

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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 22, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

Testimony: putting the heart in the right place

You must have noticed. At the end of all the texts I post, I ask you to send testimonials for us to publish here. Today, for the first time, we will have a text based on the testimony of a user. Lilian sent us a message after the post “Where is your heart?” telling how she was impacted by the message. A few days later, I got in touch to see how her walk with Jesus was, and I was very happy with the answer. I leave to all the brothers this wonderful testimony. Lilian’s first testimony Hello Marcelo! I’m here to talk about how your blog spoke DIRECTLY to me now. Yes I just read the text “Where is your heart?”. I lived something similar, but unlike you, I did not obey the voice of God. As a teenager, I had one goal in my life: to be recognized and achieve everything in the professional area. No other area of my life mattered to me. I converted before I went to college, I loved Jesus, but I followed the purpose I had set. That was “grow professionally”. So far so good, I studied, graduated, and kept working at church, […]

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August 20, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

No more shame!

For those who do not know. Along with some texts I write for this blog, sometimes I make some more in-depth videos about the subjects posted and publish it on my Instagram profile. A few months ago, a follower shared one of these videos on his profile. With this, a girl found this blog and began to be interested in the content. At the same time, it began to feed her desire to know Jesus in a purer, non-religious way. This woman eventually discovered the church to which I belong (Butantã Family Christian Church – São Paulo) and one day decided to visit us. After the service, she came to me and we talked about Christianity and how God had changed my life through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The look of happiness in her eyes that day was extraordinary. It was noticeable that this woman had just been impacted by the gospel only in the way she talked about how she had found herself. I went home overjoyed that day. Even writing for a blog in an app with millions of users, I’m still a simple young man who barely understands what’s going on. So it’s normal that sometimes […]

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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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August 07, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

God is Father

Next Sunday carries the commemorative date of Father’s Day here in Brazil (I’m a brazilian boy, if you didn’t know yet). Trying to think outside the bubble where I live and trying to take my thinking to various realities, I understand that my conception of parenting is totally different from many of you who are reading. I confess I have never had problems with my father. The quarrels were always for something wrong I did or for my father in his love correcting me. I think my only difficulty was that my father was always very reserved and not of talking so much, but that isn’t a hard problem. I have to work hard to understand that among my readers there are people who have different views on what it is to be a parent or what it means to each other. There are some who have never known their father, others who have never had a good relationship, others who miss, and still others who have never felt loved. One thing, however, is an irrefutable fact. The presence or absence of a father has a major influence on the lives of children. God gives to the father authority to […]

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August 01, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

How to read the Bible?

Many people ask me every day on my Instagram profile about how I read my Bible and what are the best ways to do it. Well, I’m not a pastor, much less a theologian. But I think I can go over some things that make it a little easier for me. Understanding the translations This part sometimes goes unnoticed. Many first-time believers think that every Bible is the same. But there is a difference that can make it much easier to understand the Word. The Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. In the early centuries the early Christians shared the manuscripts among themselves in order to copy them so that the scriptures would spread. Years later, around 400 AD, a Christian biblist named Jerome decided to translate the Bible into Latin. You may have heard about the Latin Vulgate. One of the most important translations in the western world. It was the Bible used by the Catholic church for a few centuries. Only around 1500 AD did the Bible begin to be translated into other languages. Luther made the first German version and with the help of the invention of the press, the Bible became more accessible. Curiosity: […]

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July 25, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

God is His Word

“In the beginning, the one who is the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God ” (John 1: 1) I love the times when I begin to reflect on this verse. It is at these times that I see God as inexplicable and of incomparable size and simplicity. God himself calls himself a verb. And through that, it makes it clear that contact with Him is simple and happens naturally when we are ready to listen to Him. Things get even better when John exposes the Son as God Himself. Saying that first of all, the word of salvation already existed. It freaks me out when I think God has absolutely ready everything for us to enter the Kingdom and live in communion with Him, as He was at the beginning of all things in Eden. Nonconformity with the church I have witnessed really sad times for many churches. With society increasingly valuing a culture where the self must be fully satisfied before the next. We see man running after the earthly fullness and the satisfaction of the pleasures of the flesh. Worse still, we see the church being contaminated with this growing culture. […]

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July 18, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

Do you live a shallow Christianity?

I have told you a few times about a part of the testimony of my conversion. As many of you know, I was born and raised in an evangelical church, and I got out of the way when I was about eighteen. I gave myself to God some time later. With this, I began to live Christianity in such a way that, looking back, I saw how eighteen years inside the church I was completely empty and meaningless. In fact, I’m sure that’s why I gave up living a life with God. The truth is that even years in the church, I still had no idea who my Lord was. Are we really being Christians? In this new stage of my life, trying to live with Jesus with all my heart, I began to realize that not all who call themselves Christians have lived in a way that this “title” requires living. Far from me wanting to judge or say that someone is wrong. I do not have that power and I do not want to have it. My intention is to lead you to a reflection on your own lives. About how is your practice of Christianity based on […]

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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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July 04, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

Living as children of God

Days ago I had the privilege of being invited to preach in a church whose denomination was totally different from what I am accustomed to. On this day, I felt God leading me to say something about identity. To be clearer, I began to meditate on how much the power of God is only manifested in who is His child. You may be saying now, “we are all children of God”. And in fact, the confession of our sins as well as the surrender of our lives to Jesus gives us the right to be called children. Jo 1:12 “But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in his name” The fact that I want to pay attention to, however, is not what we call the children of God. But to act like. Behavior change We know that our salvation comes through repentance of our sins. We also understand that repentance is the change of the world’s behavior towards an alignment of our culture with the culture of the kingdom of the heavens. Which leads us to think that. If we do not change our behavior. […]

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June 27, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

The True Happiness

Next Monday, I will complete a year in which I have firmly established myself in the ways of the Lord. Since then, I wanted to know him as intensely as possible. So I dedicated myself so much to having experiences with Him. In a year, I think I’ve grown a lot more than I imagined. I made a daily routine of devotion to Christ. This has brought me innumerable truly amazing moments that have proved to me more and more the fidelity and greatness of the God I serve. In this intensity, I endeavored to serve at all times, and in all circumstances. Slow down! Trying to offer too much, at times I began to feel spiritually exhausted. Until I heard God telling my heart that I should have moments of deceleration. Moments when I saw the Holy Spirit using two totally different people at different times to say that God was trying to fill me. But through my actions I was closing my heart and not fully feeling the love of God. From a few months to now, with God ministering daily to my heart the word “slow down”, I began to realize better that He gives us the […]

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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 […]

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June 13, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

How to hear the voice of God?

Many people have come to me on social networks to ask the right way to hear God speak. Some blame themselves for never having heard an audible voice. Others do not know whether God is speaking or whether what they feel is the work of their minds. I felt like writing this post to talk about how I “hear God” and encourage the brothers to strive to hear from the Lord. Lowering the volume I heard a very good phrase from Brother Douglas Gonçalves (JesusCopy) on this subject. He says that since satan can not lower the volume of God’s voice, he strives to increase the volume of things around us. So that we can not understand what God is speaking for so many things that are screaming in our ears. In fact, it is difficult to direct our minds to have contact with God in the midst of so many things. Work, study, relationships, problems, debts, processes, social networks. There are innumerable things that take our focus every day and make us spend in futilities a time when we could move away from all of this so as to silently try to hear the voice of God. If we […]

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June 06, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

Be careful on your brother’s faith

I have seen many brothers and sisters of all denominations with attitudes that sometimes cause me strangeness. I am not one of those believers who are scandalized by anything. Being a young man, I have a very broad vision of the freedom that God gives us. However, I believe that certain things should be taken with more consideration by all. For the love of others and in respect of the faith of the people around us. “Only God can judge me” In fact, no one has the task of judging anyone, for whatever reason. But is everything really judgment? At every moment I see Christians who avoid exhorting others for fear of being seen as judges. This turns difficult the lives of leaders and the expansion of the Kingdom. Since many errors are left untreated and hidden. And ends as seen as “normal” things by many people. This is the case of Christians who do not think that Christian decency and morality are so valuable in the society we are living today. Then we see men and women who claim to be patrimony of the Lord attending parties full of songs of low slang. Speaking a lot of profanity. Getting […]

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May 30, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

True wealth

Last week, after a small meeting at my church, I gave a ride to some friends and was approached by two men. It was a robbery and they took my car and several things. This post, however, is not an outburst about crime or a whining about it. “God will give you double” When the people in my daily life began to hear the bad news, I heard some phrases frequently. Such as “God will give you double” or “God will restore you” among others in the same sense. I know that many may think that I am being radical to look at these figures of speech. But this has led me to think about how a theology directed toward full material prosperity has long been gaining ground among Christians. I confess that this annoyed me a little. After all, who said that it is within the scope of the Lord to give me back what was stolen from me? Rm 11:33 “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! (34) “Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor?” (35) “Who has ever given to […]

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May 23, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

Don’t be a pharisee!

Certainly, one of the things I love the most. And what less should. It is debating biblical questions in discussions that will lead nowhere and no growth of my faith. After the last debate, however, at the moment I was asking God’s forgiveness for not knowing how to keep silent. I felt He speak in my heart the passage of 1 Sm. 17: 7. Where it is said that the Lord does not see as men see. But it does look at the heart. The word used in the Hebrew manuscript for the term “heart” is “lebab”. That carries different meanings. Among them, the soul, knowledge, reason, moral character, desires, intentions, etc. Which means that when God says to see the heart of man, it means that He is seeing an infinity of things so that there is a holy approval. We know we are considered approved before the Father by the blood of Jesus Christ. But this does not detract from our obligation to be in constant internal renewal. Aligned to the standards of holiness of the Kingdom so that we can present ourselves as approved workers (2 Tm. 2:15). Rom 12: 2 “Do not conform to the pattern […]

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May 16, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

Prayer and decision

Hello dear readers! Last week I told you one of my stories with God and how I came to stop here in this blog. Then I received in my Instagram several messages about the post “Where is your heart at?”, through which I saw, through comments and testimonies, many people being impacted by the Holy Spirit. Among the messages, I was asked for many prayers. What struck me was the number of requests among them, so that I would call for a restoration in the relationship of these people with God. I was annoyed at how many people who for some details still hesitate to put their faith and their heart totally in God. The Importance of Prayer Throughout the Bible we see examples of people crying out and being heard. Prayer is extremely important and plays some essential roles in our life with God. We should always be aware that a relationship is built with quality time and good conversations. Therefore, praying to God brings you closer to understanding who He is and how He thinks. This makes us understand his ways and purposes and feeds our spirit. The neglect to hold conversations continually with God, as in a relationship […]

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May 08, 2019·Marcelo Brandão

Where is your heart at?

“And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” (Jer 29:13 – KJV) This verse from the book of the prophet Jeremiah is extremely quoted in the evangelical churches. I at least grew up hearing this for years. From my ignorance, perhaps I have never given so much attention to the word “all”. On the other hand, I certainly learned a lesson recently. For the first time here I will talk about myself and something that God has done in my life. It will be a testimony linked to something that the Lord has placed in my heart. I hope the Holy Spirit speaks in some way to everyone. My name is Marcelo Brandão. I have little more than two decades of life and work with communication and social media. Before I started working with the Bible Offline and writing for this blog, I had another function: I’ve always been passionate about photography and football. At some point in my life I joined these two things and started working together with a club in São Paulo. Later, I was invited by ESPN to write a blog about this team. In the […]

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