no debate

Psalm 18:44 talks about people who fall in love with God
at first sight. “As soon as they hear of me, they obey me.”
Quick obedience saves us all from a lot of confusion and
emotional strain.
Sometimes the debates that we think we are having with the Lord
are actually just our own subjective reasoning, or at it’s best
just a dialogue with our flesh.
God doesn’t debate with people.
How could the perfect Truth debate with liars?
But, God does listen to man.
He doesn’t just speak to man, but he speaks with man.
Abraham’s conversation with God about the fate of
Sodom in Genesis 18 is a good example of God’s attitude
towards man. God speaks with man and he listens to him.
The Spirit prompted Philip to quick obedience in Acts 8:26-40
The future of a whole nation depended on this “little”
incident. The Ethiopian eunuch was not alone. Only heaven will
reveal how many received Christ because of his testimony.
His chariots are a great
picture of time that rolls on. It will not wait for us to get out
of our debates.

majority

Majority just cannot be right.
Look at the tower of Babylon!
How about the crusifixion of Christ,
when the voice of the multitudes prevailed over the hardly
audible whispers of the disciples.
In Acts 19 the crowd ended up claiming Paul's death without
even knowing who he was. They had never heard of him.
They blindly trusted the opinion of the majority.
They had learned that it is something you always can hide in.
Public opinion is one of the most common excuses for people to reject Christ.
Christ is the only Savior of the Turkish people,
even though only less than 1% of the population agrees with that.
Multitudes have been wrong so many times.
Even though one of the founding principles in Democracy is
everybody's right for an opinion, it's very clear that the truth
doesn't win in all votings.
I wonder how many revivals have been stopped by people's opinions?
How many blessings have been rejected because of the ignorance of
the multitudes?
Christ, the Truth, came and was left absolutely alone on the cross.
The crowd could stop their ears and close their eyes, but they could
not stop him from conquering the death. They could not stop him
loving them.

They are here!!! Welcome Jediah and Sarah!

meditation

Worship without meditation easily ends up with just a lot a psychic
noise in our soul. It’s like believing in something that you never define.
Believing in itself has no meaning.
Worship without content has no direction.
Even though people feel strongly that they are on their own, they actually
are a part of a program that is designed to distract them from God.
The Holy Spirit has power to break that flow of thoughts.
Richard Baxter said that meditation turns the truth received and remembered
into strong will power, genuine emotions and holy living.
If I find no time to daily meditate on the thoughts of God, I’m deceived.
All other , so called important things, have to wait, till I’ve been to the throne
room of heaven.
An easy way to start training ourselves in mediation is to start with simple
words such as grace, forgiveness, joy etc. With the help of one word like these
you invite the Holy Spirit to bring to your remembrance a lot of truth about
God’s character and his purposes. The Holy Spirit doesn’t lead your mind to
wonder. He leads with one truth to connect with another in God’s healing
order. The Bible, silent surroundings, pen and paper are the best tools for
successful meditation.
“Let the Word of God dwell in you richly…” Col.3:16
He wants His word to dwell in us, not just to visit.
Kenneth Wuest comments on the word "dwell” in Ephesians 3:17
to mean, that Christ would live in us and
feel perfectly at home in our soul.

we have moved

We have moved to a new location.
From now on all our meetings will be in Gumushsuyu.
It's a five minute walk from the Taxim square down the
road where the German Embassy is.
We are on the same street where the Language School Dilmer is.
Just keep on walking down on that street till you see a Dia Supermarket
to your left.
We are in the same building with Dia.
The address is: Dr.Tarik Zafer Tunaya Sok. 8, third floor, Beyoglu, Istanbul.
Call Pastor Matti 0537 203 6055 or Niyazi 0537 2426 930 for directions.
The services are on Sunday at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. and on Wednesdays at 8 p.m.

Welcome!

summer in Sotkamo

temptations

God compares his plan for his people with the refining of silver.
(Zech.13:9)
The heat must go up in order for all the dirt to be forced to the surface.
The refiner is looking for his own picture on the face of the refined silver.
The Bible uses the same word for the trials that God uses in our lives in
order to bring out the best of us and for the temptations that Satan uses
to distract from our fellowship with God.
Satan knows that he cannot get our souls back, but he glories in those moments
when causes us to believe and even to worship him.
He knows that his glory is bound to this world. In hell he will not be ruling.
It is his place of punishment.
God’s help for believers is a total protection in all the times of temptations.
I Cor.10:13
There is a way of escape for us before , after and during the temptations.
Often we hear about God giving us a godly alternative when we face
temptations. His help reaches even further.
Even if we fail and seemingly were unable to resist temptation, God
has a perfect way of escape. God is the kind of ruler who demands his debt
to be paid; then pays it himself and accepts his own payment, all because
of his great love for us.
Shame on him who misuses God’s goodness and says in his heart,
there’s a loophole for sin in his plan.
Every temptation is an attack against another blessing that God had prepared
for us. It’s a bad alternative for a Spirit-filled life.