A4P Guest: “I’m 15-year old girl. My dad thinks that “What the fudge” is a bad expression to use. He read it on one of the text messages I exchanged with my friends and saw WTF! and asked me what that abbreviation stands for. I told him that it stands for “What the fudge!” but he still said that I shouldn’t use it. Don’t you think that my dad is being too legalist?”
A4P: No, I don’t think you dad is too legalist because using phrases such as this one, I believe, is not only bad, but inappropriate, especially for those who profess to follow Christ.
Have I ever shared with you about one of my dreams since I was twelve or thirteen?
Well, I used to dream to be a model. Yes, I know that I was the shortest person among my friends and classmates but I didn’t let that fact stop me from not only wanting to be a model but also pursuing to be one with all my being.
We started having a family Bible study on Thursday nights when our youngest son was two or three years old. Then when our kids got a little older, we changed the day from Thursday to Saturday. So, if we all are in town, we always do our family Bible study on Saturday morning with a tasty breakfast which is my second favorite part of our Bible study. Why? Well, I no more cook on Saturdays. The rest of the Banko’s do. Is that a blessing or what!
Anyways, so when we started our Bible study, it was very hard to calm our kids down. When we try to tell them about Abraham and Sara or David and Goliath, they fight for a crayon or somebody wants to go to the restroom. It was very frustrating especially for me who tends to often struggle with lack of patience.
I’m not really sure why but these days many people are coming to this page and dropping this question: Are you a Protestant or an Orthodox.
Why do people ask this question? I’m not really sure. Since a number of people had asked this question, I want to say a word or two about it. But before I laid that out clearly, let me, as I always do, first look up the definition of these two terms:
Protestant: a member or follower of any of the Western Christian churches that are separate from the Roman Catholic Church and follow the principles of the Reformation, including the Baptist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran churches.
God set you and I free from the bondage of sin to reveal His Son, Jesus Christ, in and through us.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
The above kind of lifestyle is not only true of Paul but everyone who is in Christ.
I’m sure many of you know Priscilla Shirer (daughter of Pastor Tony Evans and she is one of the main characters in the “War Room” movie). Well, this is her show called “The Chat with Priscilla” (made possible by Lifeway Christian Resource.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40All91wT2s
So, in this show, Priscilla had two guests and one of whom is, Mo Isom, a blogger and speaker, known by her “50 Shades of Grace” blog.
Praise God! I had a wonderful time this past weekend with wonderful people of God in Lancaster, PA.
As I always do, before I say anything, I would like to say “Thank you” to those people who made this conference possible and my stay in Lancaster a very interesting one.
A4P Guest: I’m 25 years old. I came to Christ when I was 13. Since then, I have been in the house of God. I’ve never had a relationship with a woman. And knowing that it is a right season for me to look for a wife, I began praying about it. And amazingly enough, while I was in the middle of a two week program just to pray and fast before God for a wife, I began thinking about this one particular girl I know in my church. That weekend, I went to church and a man of God who is a prophet called me and prophesied saying, “The woman you are thinking about is your wife.” So, I accepted that and prayed about it and went to the woman and told her. She said she would pray about it and yesterday she called me and said that she didn’t think I am the one she wants to marry. I told her that she shouldn’t sin against God by refusing to listen to what the man of God said. I don’t know why she said that, maybe because she is not that strong in the Lord. How can I convince her and help her to grow spiritually?
Have you ever heard this saying, “My mind is made up. Don’t confuse me with the facts?”
I always laugh whenever I find myself acting in the way for someone to say this saying back to me. Sometimes we resist change. Well, it is, I think, one of our human tendencies to stay away from anything that is going to change the kind of life we know for a long period of time. This tendency gets bad as we get older. Forget about learning how to use effectively the ever changing technology, we don’t want to learn how to effectively fry eggs. We just want to stay with that rugged, old, time consuming and outdated way of breaking the eggs and frying them on fire.
“Just pray hard” cannot be the answer to all our problems. If that was the case, the Bible would have said: You can pray away all your problems; so pray hard.
Why do you think many Christians today advise others who are facing big or small problems to “Pray hard?”