The Crossroad Blog - Page 9 of 9 - The Crossroad

Caffeinated For Life!

What gets you up in the morning? For many American adults who lived in the late 80’s and early 90’s it was a cup of fresh brewed Folgers coffee. Last year Folgers celebrated 25 years of their jingle “The Best Part of Waking up is Folgers in Your Cup” which had become one of the most memorable and recognizable pieces of advertising in America, traditionally the largest market for coffee in the world. In honor of the silver celebration the company had encouraged young singers and musicians of the next generation to come up with a memorable contemporary rendition of the cult classic ad. Today in an age where Starbucks has nearly eradicated all competitors in the caffeine sector it is hard to think that people actually enjoyed waking up and brewing coffee from a can at home! Although Folgers has now become an irrelevant product of our past (except for traditional church coffee break times!) their advertising still remains the concept motivation behind consumer product development today. What can we make that gets a person up in the morning? What element of a person’s day can we exalt to the place of priority, purpose, and urgency? I often sit at my local Starbucks doing my work and see hundreds, nearly a thousand people, walk in like clockwork for their regular morning shot of brew. That’s marketing success at its best! Read More

Perfect Church Syndrome

People who avoid commitment to a local body often do because they seem to always find imperfections in some aspect of it. It may be the preacher who seems irrelevant to your culture. It may be the style of music played in worship that may be too slow and traditional. It may be the inadequate facilities for childcare. It could even be a bad experience in your past. These reasons may be very real to you but what we fail to realize is that there is no perfect community out there, just as there is no perfect person out there.

When we choose to only “date” the body of Christ and never commit to it we are benefiting from what we can and disposing of what remains. It is like a man who simply reduces a woman to body parts, we use the church for our gain like a parasite that never adds value or worth to its host. Read More

From Death To Life

Why are a bouquet of roses so much more desiring on a Valentine’s day morning than a rose bush? Is it because of the picture and the beauty of the arrangement at the moment compared to a random rose bush with only occasional flowers? Perhaps. But what about the long-term investment? Even if at first glance the dozen roses look so much more stunning than the rose bush, if the ultimate desire is for roses long term, the bush does seem to amount better, doesn’t it? One can try their best to continue to prolong the decay of a bouquet of roses as much as they want – and there are treatments for this. However, death is still death, what’s being delayed to come, will still inevitably come. Read More

Death Of A Story

“We can start the meeting, I see him coming.” A group of the elders of the town gathered together to make the one decision of the year that would shape the course of the next several months if not years for their community. However, they couldn’t start because the decision maker was not there just yet. A high value was placed on the position of a Pharisee in their culture. So much were Pharisees knowledgeable in the commands of the Law that they were sought over a king or a high priest for decision-making. And along with such a high status in the culture came respect and honor. Read More

Death Of A Sinner

“It will only be when my story is fully dead that the spirit of the new story will fully live in me” says Pastor Saji George. What prompts him to speak of the death of one story and the life of another? The reality of the Christ’s message to an individual.

The message that Christ brought to the world is that alongside the story that they see – one of decay and corruption found in all of creation resulting from the sin of one man – there is another story, another reality. This God-initiated story reveals God giving His Son as a payment for all offenses mankind has made against Him and receiving all sinners who accept this payment – His Son, Who is now and forevermore to be found in Human form. Why? To re-own His creation for a better destiny – one where His creation find their fulfillment in Him, or better, the way things were supposed to be. Read More

Wisdom In Trials

Trials are a prime opportunity that the enemy seizes upon to throw temptations at us. They are ever so subtle, but so destructive. Satan knows which spiritual buttons to push to make us compromise. We are aware of the danger of falling prey to Satan’s deceptions, because that’s what brought us to the fallen state that we are in. The first man and woman listened to the serpent and gave up a pure relationship with God for a temporary pleasure that they saw.

Furthermore, If our own Lord was not left alone in the wilderness from this great tempter, then how much more must we be on guard? But, this is not to cause any fear or paranoia of temptations. Just as Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, resisted the evil one in the wilderness, we too can find great strength in Him to do the same. Read More

Joy In Trials

No one is promised a trial-free life. Just as it was required for Christ to suffer, trials are not optional for those who follow Christ. James writes that there will be different kinds of trials. Someone puts it like this about trials: they are ‘like different temperature settings in God’s furnace’. So, how do we respond to them? We face every trial with joy. Experiencing joy in suffering is not something that is humanly possible. Joy is not some temporal feeling of happiness. It has an eternal element, because it is the fruit of the Spirit.

Trials essentially “test our faith”, producing perseverance—also the fruit of the Spirit. Perseverance is a quality that makes it possible to persist through the next trial, quite possibly a tougher one. But, why endure trials? Imagine with each trial God drawing us one step closer to perfection. And, what does that perfection look like? Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Read More

Waiting It Out

We live in an “instant” and “fast-food” age. People today expect everything to happen quickly, and technology is aimed at making things work faster. Because of such an impatient mentality, we rarely find the value in waiting for a specific work to complete its full course before we can enjoy its fruit or result. Even as I type these words, there’s this worldly reminder to keep things short for fear that some may not read a lengthy material. Some things need to go through its perfecting work in order to bear fruit. We may neglect this value of “waiting” when it comes to human or mechanical efforts. But, when God is the one working in our lives, may we not have this impatient attitude towards His “work” of perfection in us. Read More

The Ultimate Apologetic

How are we doing in being living evidence of God’s existence to the world around us? With so much attention being given to the intellectual legitimacy of faith via the field of apologetics, we were challenged to BEHAVE in such a way that proclaimed a life change… How can we carry out this purpose in our daily lives? The short answer: love.

The slightly longer, but far more complex answer: crazy love. This is not merely another apologetic arrow in our quiver, it is the ultimate apologetic – one that cannot be fabricated by human effort. Inspired by the example of Jesus on this earth, we are to be distributors of God’s love to the people in our lives. Not just our friends and those we share interests with, but more broadly, those who we come into contact with. The most well known description of Biblical love is found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Read More