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By the substitutionary atonement, God redeemed or bought-back all creation from Satan who now no longer owns it (Luke 4:5-7).  But Satan was not a willing seller and will never acknowledge the legitim…

By the substitutionary atonement, God redeemed or bought-back all creation from Satan who now no longer owns it (Luke 4:5-7).  But Satan was not a willing seller and will never acknowledge the legitimacy of the sale.  He believes his property was stolen from him by a phony purchase.  He is battling God to retain possession.  Consequently, creation may be legally free from the bondage of evil but it is not free from the influence of evil itself through Satan and his minions who will never relinquish possession without a fight.  Satan, who holds the power of death (Heb 2:14) and is the prince of this world (John 12:31; 14:30-31; 16:8-11), exercises a pervasive, structural and diabolical influence which caused all creation to be engulfed by the bondage of evil.  That which God created as good began to exhibit a pain-ridden, bloodthirsty, sinister and hostile demeanor.  “Mother Nature,” became an inherently violent and terrifying system dominated by disease, suffering and death – a system red in tooth and claw.  Not wanting free will to be an illusion, God is permitting, for a time and within limits, certain consequences of rebellion and corruption caused by both fallen angels and the humans who join them.  When restoration and repossession are complete, nature will be violent no more (Isa 11:6-9, 65:17-25; Rom 8:20-22; 2 Pet 3:13; Rev 21:1-4).

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In the great struggle between good and evil, the primary Allowed Weapon for God’s human soldiers is prayer because, alone, we don’t stand a chance against the dark powers.  Remember, the b…

In the great struggle between good and evil, the primary Allowed Weapon for God’s human soldiers is prayer because, alone, we don’t stand a chance against the dark powers.  Remember, the battle is spiritual and must be fought in God’s strength, depending on the Word of God and on God through prayer.  The verbal Word of God is called the sword of the spirit.  That sword is one of two offensive weapons in the full armor of God (Eph 6:10-18).  The other offensive weapon is prayer.  Only by prayer are we able to firmly grasp the hilt of the sword in our human hands, remove it from its scabbard and wield it against the invisible forces of evil.  Prayer is the spiritual strength driving the sword of the spirit in our hands as we strive side by side with Jesus Christ to: (1) restore and repossess His corrupted creation which He has set free from the bondage of evil (healing); (2) help the unsaved cross the finish line of salvation and become disciples of Christ as they are being nudged by the Prevenient Grace of God which calls and convicts every soul to be set free from the bondage of sin (evangelism) and (3) by training and right living, prevent the influence of sin from undermining the Christian walk of the saved (discipleship).  I may not have charismatic gifts.  My relationship with Jesus may not always be as personal as I might wish.  But I can stand up as an infantryman in the army of our commander in chief.

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Many people refuse anointing with oil, laying on of hands and healing prayer because, in their minds, they lack the faith to be healed.

I have prayed for dozens of sick, injured or disabled over the past years in hospitals, homes, church chapel and in the Sanctuary at the end of each Sunday morning service.  God always responds.  Prayer always makes a difference.  But the difference is not always dramatic and obvious because prayer does not cancel or suspend the particular network of constraints which are bringing some outcome into being.  Prayer is the means through which the specific action of God works in and through that network, bringing some succession of events to a different outcome than would otherwise have been. 

Some do not ask for prayer because they believe they lack the faith to be healed.  However, careful examination, of the 26 well documented healings performed by Jesus Christ, reveals that, in at least six cases, neither the person healed nor those associated with him/her demonstrated any faith whatsoever [Pool of Bethesda, John 5:1-17; Shriveled Hand, Mat 12:9-14; Deceased Son, Luke 7:11-17; Born Blind, John 9:1-38; Bent Double, Luke 13:10-17; Dropsy, Luke 14:1-6].  According to Scripture, the only person needing faith is the person providing the healing activity, not the person receiving the healing activity!

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Lafz is a range of Halal compliant personal care products like halal deodorant and perfume. Made hygienically and does not contain any alcohols or parabens or animal ingredients.

Most of us use deodorants frequently. However, have you ever wondered what your deodorant is made up of? And whether it is halal or not? It might not have occurred to you but your deodorant can also contain haram ingredients.

Prophet Muhammad loved fragrances and used them frequently. When he was presented with a fragrance, to use or as a gift, he never refused it. He once said that perfume was one of the things that had been made dear to him. His wife Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) reported, “I used to perfume Allah’s Messenger with the best scent available till I saw the shine of the scent on his head and beard.”

Our Prophet Muhammad used the finest scents like Musk, Amber, and Oud. He especially loved Musk and said, “It is the best of your perfumes.” Moreover, he also guided us about the different kinds of fragrances that should be used by men and women. He said, “The perfume for men is that whose scent is apparent while its colour is hidden, and the perfume for women is that whose colour is apparent, while its scent is hidden.” 

He encouraged Muslims to keep themselves clean, healthy and groomed. The teachings of Islam ensure that Muslims are tidy and presentable. One of the personal care products that help us in this regard is the deodorant or body spray. Deodorant is a kind of fragrance that is used widely today. It designed for everyday use; it is cheaper compared to perfume, is light and helps conquer any bad smell from sweating. It was first introduced in the United States in the 1950s and has now become a staple item on bathroom shelves across the world. 

Being Muslims we have to keep ourselves free from impurities, as cleanliness is a prerequisite for our obligatory daily prayers. If we get into a state of impurity (najasah) or there is something impure on our bodies or clothes, our prayer will not accept. Many scholars consider alcohol as an impure substance. Nonetheless, it is the most common ingredient used in most perfumes. So, if we are wearing a normal deodorant with alcohol in it that would mean that our clothes and body will have traces of alcohol on it too. Therefore, we should completely avoid the deodorants and scents that have alcohol. They consider as impermissible.

Halal is a lifestyle. A Muslim eats halal, acts halal and uses perfumes and deodorants that are halal. At first, we did not have many alternatives to the normal deodorants manufactured by non-muslims. However, there are many halal certified brands in the market now, which have produced excellent quality alternatives. Instead of alcohol which dries the skin and causes irritation they use natural beauty ingredients like aloe vera, tea tree oil, and vetiver. These organic ingredients act as moisturizers and have been known for their anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties.

Aloe vera has a soothing and healing effect on the skin. The vetiver helps the skin to stay fresh and moisturized, and the tea tree helps reduce inflammation and scars. Instead of a harmful and irritant substance like alcohol, our preference should be to use products that contain natural beauty ingredients that do not pose a danger to our health and skin. 

Because not only Allah instructs us to consume halal, he also instructs us to consume things that are tayyab. The Quran states: “And eat of what Allah has provided for you [which is] lawful and good. And fear Allah, in whom you are believers.” Tayyab means good, unharmful and clean; something that is known to be excellent because of its properties and nature. 

Halal and tayyab are the hallmarks of a Muslim. The next time we buy a deodorant let’s make sure that we are choosing one that is permissible and pure (halal and tayyab).

Lafz is a brand of beauty products featuring halal deodorant and halal perfumes, which are Halal Certified Brand.

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The Protestant church is currently in septic shock caused by a massive internal infection.  Protestants are succumbing to abscesses deep within the Christian community.  Serious infections in the chur…

The Protestant church is currently in septic shock caused by a massive internal infection.  Protestants are succumbing to abscesses deep within the Christian community.  Serious infections in the church are generally caused by corrupt Christians and not by external influences.  Satan knows the best way to cripple the church is from within; he does this most effectively by corruption of church leadership.  Powerful personalities among the upper echelon elite of Christianity practice lawlessness, apostasy, heresy and blasphemy all under the guise of making the teachings of Jesus Christ more palatable in this modern age and more in tune with progressive thinking.  Many pastors quickly learn to serve the ones who pay their salaries, control their careers and teach them about the importance of political correctness.  Many pastors become entertainment directors for country club churches having such shallow content that every corner of their great edifice is infused with the pall of spiritual death.  Most pastors promote congregational ignorance for fear of losing control; an ignorant congregation is a manageable congregation.  Most pastors fail to stand firm against the evil sweeping over civilization like a tsunami.  Unprincipled pastors and other powerful leaders, propped-up by Seminaries and Bible Colleges, are the root cause of the Protestant Church death spiral.

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Pastors and church leaders are generally unwilling or unable to make a paradigm shift in Great Commission strategy.  The UMC will be used as an example but the commentary applies equally well to other…

Pastors and church leaders are generally unwilling or unable to make a paradigm shift in Great Commission strategy.  The UMC will be used as an example but the commentary applies equally well to other denominations.  The United Methodist Church has been in a death spiral for many decades.  A short list of remedial measures has been thrust in the faces of members tens of thousands of times by two generations of church leaders.  These measures may have produced nominal success in the first half of the 20th century but, for the past 50 years, their influence has been overwhelmed by major changes in American culture.  Now they have lost their effectiveness altogether.  One example is the act of witnessing to the unchurched at work or in places of business.  This is now considered “religious workplace harassment” and may result in penalties against those engaged in proselytizing.  Another example is inviting your neighbor to church.  In a modern American subdivision, you don’t know your neighbors well enough to invite them for a doughnut let alone invite them to church.  Only superficial shifts in Great Commission strategy have been made, over the years, even though today’s culture is much more jaded, sophisticated and anti-Christian than the culture of the 1960’s.  35% of millennials don’t trust religious leaders.  Some UMC leaders want to appease the un-churched by introducing social positions, which mirror our culture, into the church as God approved behavior (same sex marriage, abortion for convenience, etc.). Nevertheless, the average age of a Methodist is about 60 years and 90% of all UMC churches over 100 years old will close in the next few years.  We re-double our efforts to implement failed programs in spite of that old adage, “If you do what you’ve always done, you get what you always got!”  Any retail business exhibiting a downward spiral like that of the UMC would, long ago, have made a fundamental paradigm shift and the blame for failure would have been assigned solely to management and not the consumer base.

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In December, 2019, certain members of the Christian community (Christianity Today editorial board) called for the removal of Donald Trump from the Presidency because he did not meet their standards of…

In December, 2019, certain members of the Christian community (Christianity Today editorial board) called for the removal of Donald Trump from the Presidency because he did not meet their standards of morality.  The editorial board of Christianity Today has lost proper perspective on what it means to be a Christian.  They claim to maintain a publication created to preserve theological purity, but over time, the magazine has morphed into the visible arm of an exclusive club enabling Christian “insiders” to set themselves apart from the world.  The common name for this malady is legalism and the insiders consider themselves “Christian elite.”  Their self-proclaimed purity lifts them to a peerage above the just barely saved.  It seems that regeneration by the Grace of God can never quite lift the ordinary repentant sinner to the peerage occupied by those who claim lives of moral purity.  This is a slap in the face to God’s plan of redemption and creates an obstacle for the unsaved.  The corruption that is Christian elitism is invisible to the self-proclaimed elite but clear as a bell to outsiders looking in. 

Christianity is a redemptive religion based on confession of sin, remorse, repentance, faith and obedience continually reaffirmed and renewed.  It is a daily dying to sin and living to pursue righteousness.  You have no grasp on holiness except that given to you by the grace of God.   God sometimes uses persons who have demonstrated a lifetime of substantial moral purity but, most often, He uses men and women who have desperately responded to the grace of God by confession of sin, remorse, repentance, faith and obedience.  God does not generally use sinless people because He can’t find any!  The Church is a hospital for the healing of sinners, not an introverted, self-serving country club for saints. 

God used Paul the Apostle and John Newton the pastor, who were each accessories to multiple murders.  God allowed Tamar, Rahab and Bathsheba to be part of the genealogy of Jesus.  Scripture ruthlessly reveals the sins of great men and women of God – Noah lay drunk and naked in his tent, Abraham claimed Sarah was his sister, Sarah attempted to hide her laughter, Isaac imitated his father’s lie, Jacob cheated his brother, Moses angrily struck the rock, Aaron made a gold idol, Joshua did not drive out the Canaanites, Gideon made an ephod, Samson lived a licentious life, David had Uriah murdered, Solomon worshipped other gods, Elijah became utterly despondent and Peter refused to eat with gentile Christians. The Christianity Today editorial board may prefer that some of these men and women be removed from Scripture. It must be particularly embarrassing to them that promiscuous women are in the genealogy of Jesus. 

God could have His hand on President Trump just as he had his hand on Joshua and Gideon.

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One of the core beliefs of Christianity can be expressed as:
Jesus Christ is God the Son.  Jesus Christ is man.  Jesus Christ is one person whose divine and human natures cannot be changed, divided, …

One of the core beliefs of Christianity can be expressed as:

Jesus Christ is God the Son.  Jesus Christ is man.  Jesus Christ is one person whose divine and human natures cannot be changed, divided, separated or mixed.  Jesus Christ was resurrected bodily from the dead.  Jesus Christ was born of a virgin.

The belief that ‘Jesus Christ is one person’ is documented in Scripture but the remainder of the sentence, ‘whose divine and human natures cannot be changed, divided, separated or mixed was developed over a period of 125 years in response to heresies introduced into the church by well-meaning Christian leaders. 

For the purpose of discussion, it is useful to consider Jesus Christ as one person with two natures: divine and human.  A nature can be thought of as a complex collection of attributes and not a substantive entity.  A divine nature is a complex collection of attributes associated with God (e.g. transcendence, immanence, infinitude, eternality, immutability, etc.) while a human nature is a complex collection of attributes associated with humans (e.g. a physical body).

In the fourth century, the Arians taught that Jesus Christ was one person with two natures.  One nature was human but the other nature was not divine.  Jesus was viewed as a creation of God and, therefore, not God himself.  Jesus was, more or less, the physical incarnation of an angel.  Arianism was condemned by the Council of Nicaea in 325AD but was resurrected in the nineteenth century by Charles Taze Russell and the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Also, in the fourth century, the Apollinarians reacted strongly to the Arians and flipped to the other extreme.  They taught that Jesus Christ was one person with two natures.  One nature was divine but the other nature was not human.  They based this teaching on the belief that man consists of body, soul and spirit making the trichotomous assumption that soul and spirit are distinguishable substantive entities.  Jesus was thought to have the body and soul of a man but the spirit of the pre-existing Logos.  Apollinarianism was condemned by the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD.

In the fifth century, the Nestorians taught that Jesus Christ was two persons, one the divine Jesus and one the human Jesus.  Mary gave birth to the human Jesus but not the divine Jesus.  Nestorianism was condemned by the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD.

Also in the fifth century, the Eutychians perpetuated the monophysite heresy.  They taught that Jesus Christ was one person with one nature.  That nature was neither fully divine nor fully human but a mixture of the two.  Eutychianism was condemned by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD.

Thus, Jesus Christ is one person whose divine and human natures cannot be changed, divided, separated or mixed.  These are the four great Chalcedonian Adverbs.

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Some believe the healing activity should never be administered to a proxy on behalf of the person who needs healing.  But careful examination, of the 26 well documented healings performed by Jesus Chr…

Some believe the healing activity should never be administered to a proxy on behalf of the person who needs healing.  But careful examination, of the 26 well documented healings performed by Jesus Christ, reveals that at least three healings were requested by proxies acting on behalf of the persons needing to be healed [Nobleman’s Son, John 4:46-54; Centurion’s Servant, Mat 8:5-13; Canaanite Woman’s Daughter, Mat 15:21-28].  Jesus not only honored the request of each proxy but, concerning the centurion and the Canaanite woman, Jesus commended their “great faith.”  In addition to “great faith,” the Canaanite woman demonstrated incredible persistence in the face of withering admonitions from Jesus.  Similarly, in addition to “great faith,” the centurion demonstrated great humility.  Jesus also honored the faith and persistence of the nobleman.  Jesus made note of the unshakeable faith, resolute desire for healing and overall character of each proxy.  Jesus showed no interest in the faith, desire for healing and character of the three persons who actually needed healing.  Jesus healed, by the power of the Holy Spirit, based on His assessment of the proxies and not on His assessment of those represented by the proxies.

Perhaps in the Christian Church today, a proxy might also play a central role in healing.  The minister of healing would say: As you (proxy) are outwardly anointed with this oil, may your loved one be inwardly anointed by the peace, mercy and grace, by the love and healing power of the Holy Spirit… As I lay my hands upon you, may the healing hands of God the Father embrace every fiber of your loved ones being….  Multitudes of sick, injured and disabled will never come to a church for healing.  A proxy may be the only way they will ever receive the power of a healing activity.

The various proxies, in New Testament times, were not merely sterile conduits connecting Jesus to the sick; but rather each proxy played a central role in healing.  Neither the son, the servant nor the daughter would have been healed without the intervention of proxies who met the standards of Jesus.  Since we understand the role of a proxy in the healing ministry of Jesus, how can we, in this age, condemn that role as unscriptural?

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