I know, too many posts in such a short period of time. I guess interesting things are happening and I feel the need to share them and get feedback.
Tuesday nights are GBU (University Bible Group) meetings and we were going on a prayer walk around the UQAM campus. We were only six people (three leaders…) so I went on a prayer walk with one of the leaders. He’s actually learning French at l’UQAM so we went to a few of our classrooms and prayed for our teachers, classmates and the university in general. We prayed about many different things, but at one point I asked a question that made us stop and talk for the remaining time.
“I know everything is possible with God. But since the world is always getting worse and will one day reach a point where it’ll be judged by God and will be destroyed, can we pray and hope for a revival in the Québécois society?” That was my question.
I’m sort of tired to pray for God to move hearts, to bring life to the students, to help them make right choices and be delivered from sin because if they don’t hear the message of Jesus Christ, no change will come. I do not mean that we should not pray for those things to happen, but we should pray that God would open our hearts and eyes to see what we can do and how we can bring His gospel on campus. We need to pray that God would strengthen and equip US to shine His life around us.
My conversation with my prayer partner though was very inspiring. I’m realizing how superficial I am when it comes to the things of God, how quickly I get discouraged at praying and how I forget about the spiritual battles that are going on around me. And because of that, I’m no threat to Satan and his demons.
We were three people going for something to drink after the meeting. The leader and I had some stuff to talk about and the other person accompanying us was a student. We didn’t know he was Catholic so it opened up a range of discussion topics. I had to stop them on infant baptism and make sure my understanding of it was real. It’s quite interesting the views people hold and it’s good to rub shoulders with them. Both guys were pretty much for infant baptism. The Catholic guy seemed to change his view or words as we talked (going from “it’s to ensure the baby will go to heaven if he dies before a certain age” to “it’s the symbol of a blessing to be born in God’s family” - I might lack some info here though) but anyways, what I’m wondering about it that they were saying that early Christians associated baptism with circumcision. Circumcision was not to be performed anymore (no more blood needed) but baptism was a replacement for it (an alliance of water). I get the point and see how people at that time could have linked the two together, but I personally don’t see any evidence for it in the New Testament (if you have some Bible sources about it, please let me know). But the guys argument was that this thinking (link between circumcision and baptism) was so deep into the philosophies of the Jews, that there was no need to write about it in the New Testament (to me, this is quite a weak argument, they might have sources, but I have no idea what they are). It’s okay if baptism is a symbol as described in the Bible, but the only baptisms talked about in the Bible are done after repentance and I don’t think we should baptize for any other reason than what the Bible tells us we should. I have little knowledge about this all, so your comments are welcome!
ctive way with good points and good sources. I’ve been thinking about argumentation lately, from arguing about points of views on food or ecology to sharing the Gospel and revealing the pitfalls of people’s philosophies. I am not sure anymore if I want to be someone who knows and can argue well with people. Simply because the majority of the stuff that I find myself arguing about are points of views about things that are not worth arguing for.
time. A little awkward, since he didn’t know the chords/notes, but eh. At the end of the service, he came up to Rachel and I and started telling us about all the great things we could do together as a worship team, he could teach us more guitar stuff and bring his music students to play with us in church. He wants to transform the whole worship part of the church and it was his first time in church! I felt like telling him to sit in church for a little and get to know the people and the church’s needs about music, and, talk to the church’s leaders about it… and make sure he is not imposing anything on us, as we’ve been planning with more people about the music team. Quite a morning. He’s really gifted though, he played at the Montreal Jazz Festival he said, and it would be neat to have him, but it was his first time in our church, so I’m hoping and praying that he’ll be guided by the church’s leaders about this and take the time to get to know the people and see for himself if he wants to go to our church for real or not.
t moment attacking, I am not professing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”