IAFB Australia Incorporated

The questioning of the reliability of every word written in the Bible is becoming popular nowadays. It seems to be hard for a person to believe that scriptures written are indeed true or even accurate at the very least, especially now that technologies and science are advancing. This issue is not even new in today's generation, it had existed then in earlier generations, and this notion seems to be widely spreading. God became silent for many years without messages, visions, and words given to any prophets or priests. And without any voice being heard from God, His past words are being forgotten and sometimes people consider irrelevant. If that period, which is not long enough compare to where we are now in this generation, can doubt about God’s word; How much more in our current generations? God made a promise that He will send a Saviour and that He will restore the broken relationship between man and God.  Mary, the mother of Jesus on earth, is not an exception to this social dil...

Stillness and silence are the two important disciplines that Christian must integrate to themselves as part of their daily walk of faith, in service to our God and to our neighbours in the communion with the Holy Spirit. These two looks to be similar but in reality are completely different in purpose and in need, however, these are very close to each other that both are mostly dependent to each other. Silence is the practice of being quiet before our God of every inner or outer self-voices and being attentive to His Voice (or Words). Stillness is the practice of releasing our dependence to ourselves and relying solely to God in every aspect of our lives. While we are busy dealing in our lives and the lives with our families and friends, church ministries and activities, social communities, and personal ambitions; we are forgetting to set a time for being quiet and calm especially when the stress levels are high. God’s invitation in Psalms 46:10, is asking us to trust in Him. He offered...

(Matthew 8:1-4) 1 After he came down from the mountain, large crowds followed him. 2 And a leper approached, and bowed low before him, saying, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." 3 He stretched out his hand and touched him saying, "I am willing. Be clean!" Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4 Then Jesus said to him, "See that you do not speak to anyone, but go, show yourself to a priest, and bring the offering that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them." When I come across the book of Matthew 8:1-5; it seems to be a very similar, simple, or familiar story from the collections of different stories in the Bible. But as much as I wanted to understand its message, there was a wonderful revelation that comes in my mind. And this story helps me to realize the obedience to God's authority and commands. Indeed, the story is all about the man who has leprosy but was healed. During that time, the worst and poorest thing that may call a pe...

When we were young, we were brought up by our parents to what they want us to be. Usually they groomed us to be the person whom they admired and hoped to become but didn't happen. They wanted us to continue the dreams they did not achieved. But I know that other parents wanted to bring out the best from their children and allow them to choose the path they want to take. Whether we like it or not, our success and failure are a product of how our parents guided and influenced us. It has no difference to what God's desire for us, his children. He surely desire to let us find our true selves whom God plan us to be. But most of the time, we want to be of someone else rather than simply be ourselves. There is no wrong in this attitude, if and only if this desire is also aligned to our capabilities, skills, characters, and God's will and purpose in our lives. Like our biological parents, God is so glad to see his children succeeding in their lives and to all the aspects of it. B...

Looking back to my earlier days, I feel chained by poverty that seems too impossible for me to get out of it. I still remember that as I age more and understand what my true situation was, I feel even harder for everyday that ends. It was a difficult situation for me, indeed; but I thank God for He did a great job to put everything in my life in order under His careful instruction and supervision. God made us and breathed us to life, and so His spirit was shared in us too. Only if we learn to believe that God does exist in our lives, then we can make use the power behind it to the most possible way. God is too willing to free us from any form of bondage like pain, sufferings, inequities, and sins. He wants to restore not only the broken relationship between us and Him but also to restore us as His precious creation. We are the only creation of God that He breathed to live, and that makes us the apple of His eye. Paul, in His letter to the Corinth churches, reminded them the presence of...

There are people whose hearts are hardened by their experiences and starting to ignore God and denying His utmost participation in our daily lives. Some are due to sorrows, difficulties, and disabilities but others are due to their self-confessed successes in our lives. We tend to forget God when we are reaping fruits of our labour like bearing education, a well-paid job, a great career and promotion, a good business, and many more. Because we enjoy them most, we get rid the joy God has given and shared to us from the time we were borne. In His ultimate plan for us to reconcile with Him, He called everyone to return to Him with true repentance. He allowed His own Son, Jesus, to die for our sins and be restored with Him in the same way Jesus has risen and ascended to heaven to join Him. But He wants with all of our heart and not of compulsion. Even before the time of Jesus ministry here in earth, God wants His people to return to Him as He is merciful, compassionate, slow to anger, and ...

Christians are known to be peace-loving people. We are expected to behave well both in private and most especially in public. As much as possible, we avoid getting involved in any trouble to anyone or caught having trouble to others but, of course, it's inevitable.  There are times where we were witnessing others doing things which are against God's law and are evil in His eyes. Every believer is challenged when facing this kind of situation, especially if it involves our close families and friends. God drawn us to Jesus, therefore, we are saved by believing Him that He is the Lord, He is risen, and He is the Son of God. He has also given us His Lamp to be the Light of the world for those who are in darkness (Matthew 5:14-16) by doing righteous before the Lord. God appoints us to be our brother's watchman. If we knew someone, whether we are in relationship with them or not, and they commit sins or wickedness; we MUST warn them! God spoke to His prophet in Ezekiel 33:8-9...

On the very first time that I decided to start the new FBGC church service in Point Cook, I feel worried about the possibility that it may not work for me. Moreover, I was also ordained to be the local pastor in this new community of believers. Although I have that desire in my heart and seeing the vision in my mind for what this church will look like, I really have no idea that I will serve as the pastor of this church, given my lack of experience in this field. With my doubt, I did not stop to do what God has called me to perform. We open our home to serve as our initial venue for the opening of our church service, we organize according to what task each pioneering members can carry out, we plan for some activities that help us to grow as a church for both workers and members like Beginners Bible Class, organizing Cell Group for smaller group bible studies and fellowship, and many more. At this moment, we have just moved to a new place God has prepared for us to serve as new place of...

I forgive but I do not forget!" This quote is one of the popular, if not the famous statement, that we can hear or read in social networking posts coming from persons who received pains, betrayals, sorrows, and troubles from family, friends, acquaintances, or even strangers. It is a sad situation to witness that once best of friends with their number of years of great relationship will simply be ruined because of sinning against each other that reach ones limit. Then when they start talking to each other, they will learn the things that they hate from each other before, although they have already forgiven themselves before, but it was not really forgotten. This kind of relationship and situation are becoming very popular now. Worst thing a person can do to others is to retaliate verbally, physically, emotionally, and even spiritually. We tend to cast curses, slander, or do the same way how it was done to us even to point of threatening others’ lives. Scary but true. It is simply b...

The Bible is our “Basic Information Before Leaving Earth”. This serves as our primary reference for everything to live here on earth; in peace, in righteousness and in saving grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. It reveals great wisdom from different authors of the books, moreover, the scriptures spoken and written by our God. Everything written to it has great significance; well, it may be boring in some part of the books when read but that is of equal importance. Why are we studying the Bible? Aside from being one of the longest surviving books of the early people, this is written not to entertain, inform, and teach the reader but to transform, inspire, refresh, and give insights and wisdom for those who dig on every stories, verses, and context inside of it. The message revealed is always new at every instance you read it, it maybe mysterious but this is how God designed it. I have not seen any books that a single verse can give several meanings and penetrate the heart and mi...

There was a recent miracle witnessed by the whole world over the execution of Mary Jane Veloso, the convicted drug courier to Indonesia and sentenced with a death penalty through firing squad. It was, indeed, a miracle because she was the only one spared of life among the eight other prisoners who were in the same firing line to face the gruesome act of Indonesian laws. All Filipinos around the globe are celebrating and truly overwhelmed by God’s Saving Grace and granting the prayers to spare MJ’s life. Everyone is in the attitude of praise, giving glory and honour to Him. This event is a true test of faith not only by the Filipinos but by MJ herself. The scripture is true that “only our own faith can saves us.” MJ says that “Na kahit gahibla na lang na oras ang natitira, kung gusto ng Panginoon na mabuhay ako, bubuhayin pa niya ako.” Her story really moves every Filipino in their faith and in tears simply because everyone believes, she is only a victim of human and drug trafficking sy...

Preaching the Gospel of Jesus is the main task of every believer and follower of Christ. We will encounter many kinds of people of different norms and culture, life statuses, and levels of intelligence in every moment of sharing the good news brought to us by Jesus. And in the presence of dynamic information technology in today's generation, spreading the good news is being presented in more creative and fancy way, and distributed very fast and connecting to the world too easily. But great power has great responsibility. Everyone wants to upgrade our skills in these technologies and embracing it, incorporating it, and becoming part of our daily lives. Our core of sharing the Gospel of Jesus is becoming a habit of simple explanation and message created by the author and we are agreeing only most often. Our job to scrutinize it, study it, and understand it is now disregarded; rather, we simply believe it to be the truth as it was revealed. If we lost our access to all our high techno...

To most of us, churchgoers; coming to the church services is one way for us to show that we are active members of such church. However when outside of the church service, do we still keep ourselves active in expressing our faith? Or we simply keep ourselves quiet about it and simply go along with the worldly deeds of our unbeliever peers. The brother of Jesus, James, reminds us in his epistle that faith must be accompanied with works -- "For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead." --James 2:26. There are two separate phrases in this verse which are correlated with each other as the former refers to the church and the latter to its member. Being member of Christ's church does not start and end in coming and leaving the church service. Membership starts on the day of your salvation, the time you accepted Jesus as your Savior and repented on your sins; and ends in eternity with Jesus. Our physical death will not end our goal for ete...

When I was looking at the old photographs of my children, it reminds me how  beautiful they are when they were still babies and I noticed how quiet and contented they are when I was carrying them in my arms. It is good to be a child, indeed, as you are not aware what things are happening around you.  Psalms 131:1-3  1 O Lord, my heart is not proud, nor do I have a haughty look. I do not have great aspirations, or concern myself with things that are beyond me.  2 Indeed I am composed and quiet, like a young child carried by its mother; I am content like the young child I carry.  3 O Israel, hope in the Lord now and forevermore!  The psalmist in Psalms 131 is trying to console himself and not to concern the things that are beyond his. With our limited knowledge and wisdom, we cannot explain and longs for things that cannot reach by human capabilities. There are things that we can only hope for to God that everything we need will be taken care of by Him. Like ...

“Why should any living person complain when punished for his sins? נ(Nun) Let us carefully examine our ways, and let us return to the Lord. Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven” - Lamentations 3:39-42. When staring in a beautifully painted wall, we may get amazed to its outstanding beauty at the first look. But staring to it for some time, we start looking for the defects, a hole, paint patches, dirt, etc. The tendency of human mind is to always try to find out of what makes a perfect imperfect. It seems that there is no difference in our relationship with our God, we tend to complain on His alleged imperfections to us especially when we feel punished by our committed sin. We assume that God is unfair as if it is Him who caused these pains to us. We are acknowledging our sin against Him, thus we repent, but we do not want to be punished. This is not a true repentance then, it is just admittance. Though God accepted us wholeheartedly, we still have to bear the conseq...

When we accepted Jesus as our personal Lord and Saviour with all our heart, in truth and in action; we experienced a rebirth of our spirit. We, together with Christ, have overcome death which is the wages of sin and given a renewed life born of Spirit from God and promised of eternal life with Him. This metamorphosis drama of redemption is indeed an illustration of God's abundant grace and love to all humanity. Finally, we are now restored in our relationship with God that once had been broken by our sin. The faith of every believer, his cries, and his longings; moves God spirit and that what gives us the opportunity to live a renewed lives. Jesus, in one important event of his ministry on earth, awakened Lazarus who was buried for days then. You can follow this story in John 11:1-44. When Jesus called Lazarus to wake up, there was no participation from crowd occurred. However when Lazarus came out from his tomb, Jesus commanded them to "unwrap him and let him go." It was...

Every believer is entrusted with the Gospel of Jesus the moment he accepted Him as their Lord and Saviour through the Holy Spirit who draws us near to Him and gives His wisdom abundantly. Therefore, it is our responsibility to preach to everyone without any exceptions. However as we try to share Jesus' Good News, we either trying to be caught in emotional defensive and/or offensive conversation rather than victorious salvation of souls. We all fall in this invincible trap that almost unrecognizable and later becomes our habit already. A habit of defensive and offensive preaching of the Gospel is not the main characteristics of it. It may only lead to sending people away from hearing the Word of God. The good news of Jesus, indeed, exaggerates the image of God such as Kind, Love, Mercy, Grace, Just, and Eternity in heaven.  Paul summarizes it in Titus 3:4-7 says " 4 But "when the kindness of God our Saviour and his love for mankind appeared, 5 he saved us not by works of ...

Today, the inauguration of FBGC Pointcook , is a celebration of the birth of a new bud (this church) branching from The True Vine (Jesus) who is under the care of our Gardener (God, The Father) --- John 15:1. Everyone enjoys the atmosphere of Spiritual Breakthrough as a product of this blossoming creation of God, the opening of our church here in Pointcook. We, our church, are a work in progress. We are not made of any non-living raw materials. We are God’s most loved living creations who have body, soul, and spirit. We are rational, social, and spiritual being. But like any full grown branches, we are starting from being a bud. Our main goal is to grow, glow, and go. Jesus reminded us in John 15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me – and I in him – bears much fruit, because apart from me you can accomplish nothing.” In order for us to grow, we have to keep a solid connection to vine, to be fed by his living water, and hold us firmly even in the time of adv...