Still, see!
Grew up in the 70 s.
Followed.
Said this, studying.
Stopping, see what?
I was.
And that's not people who organize one of the main.
My ideas on this one so.
They came, and they started to go straight to my library, and they started to take the books and to throw them on the floor.
And I told them guys, please don't step on those books.
Those. Yeah, this is my food. I need this to books for my, for my work.
Please don't step, and I said, you take them, and to pile them on top of that thing full with Bibles and Christian literature, and I was praying, Lord, you created people's size.
You can make them blind as well. 80 doesn't find anything.
When you start to let the Lord guide your life, you can become very resourceful.
Anyway, I was arrested. They took those couple of 5 or 6 bucks to the boxes with my books from the bookcase.
They should take some and some of my Bibles in different languages, and including Greek, a Hebrews.
Anyway, and they me. They arrested me. I was questioned, beaten.
Sentence for 3 years in prison, because I didn't think up names and people but after one year Chelsea could give me personal the Dictator choshest because it was killed on Christmas Day, 1,989 gave me personal
amnesty, and I could live Romania.
2 years later and come to the Us. This is the reason that I'm here.
Yeah, I went for my master's at Moody Bible Institute, at the Grad School, and for my Phd.
At University of Phoenix, and during this time I started also E.
Christian University in Romania, but with the brazen roots.
This one of the 7 university Christian schools in the world at the University Level Bible Institute.
My wife teaches English as a ministry tool, and I teach a classiology, pastoral theology, Biblical counseling, and lately spiritual Christianity in postmodernism.
This is my background. Okay, this course is one that I'm what I'm thinking those days is part of my class on feature formation.
And Biblical discipleship. I'm preparing for my Master's program, and in Romania, so it is a lot of video.
We cannot cover it. I know, is part of life, but anyway, you'll have the things in your hands.
Hands. And if you have questions, we can work with those questions. Okay?
Let's continue with our additional spirituality.
The second, the first was loving God, the right completely, the second is loving ourselves correctly.
We live in a world that hey? Emphasizes a lot.
Self love, and ask the questions. Fortunately we switched the you know, the on the other side you don't have to log yourself.
You have to hate yourself. I heard that, and that just made me feel bad.
Why hate yourself? It's.
The Lord created you as you are and should, and you should celebrate who you are.
Don't hate yourself, but you have to love yourself correctly.
That means you have to see yourself as the Lord sees you.
This is the right way to see yourself.
We know from John 15, that apart from Christ, we have nothing and do nothing of eternal value.
We know that at the same time that we become, when we accepted crisis, our personal Savior, we became new creatures in here.
We are different people.
We're transformed from the kind of darkness to the kingdom of his life. Life and love.
As Paul said, we have to understand that that we are special is not, I Meanm not emphasizing this to make you feel.
I don't know of great, and to get you're proud of it.
No, you are, and we are special special in God's eyes.
He paid the biggest price in the universe for us.
He invested in us, he transformed us. He helped us to be the man we are today.
And this is wonderful. We should celebrate that.
We know we have a new credited in Christ and our future.
Is secure because of our new destiny as members of his body.
We are not people, that we are dying, and will be annihilated.
That's it. Nothing will happen. No will continue our short life here, living in eternity with our God and our Lord.
And this is great. It's wonderful!
But again only when we see ourselves as God sees us, we love ourselves correctly.
That means.
The Bible gives a lot of definitions for the children of God.
You have them. There are a lot of them just put together like this.
But here I just try to emphasize the way they in John, for example, we have.
We have children of God. Oh, branch of the 2 of us, Vine!
A friend of Jesus, we have been justified and redeemed.
Crucified in with Christ, and not longer a slave to seen.
I have been set free from not condemned by Gods, said, free from loss of sin and death, accepted by Christ.
I have to be being called to be a saint in Jesus.
We have wisdom, Rachel, and sanctification, redemption.
See all, many others. You have a lot of lot of these.
Those versus. I encourage you to take one by one and to read them playfully, and to talk with the Lord about that. And you learn a lot about yourself, and you start to see yourself in the wonderful way the world created you.
Don't hate yourself. Hate scene, but that should make you come closer to the world.
The third, love is loving, others compassionately.
We have to love people, people see, feel when we don't love them, even if we have a smiling face, or I don't know a very nice attitude.
But if our heart is dark or our heart is cold, people will see that we'll feel that.
We learned from Jesus that he was criticized, rejected, standard.
Even killed by his family and friends. He disciples everybody, everybody hated Jesus.
I lived in a country, in communism, the Communist hated Christians, I mean they hated Christians when they started to talk with us.
They? You could see their face turning dark and red, and being angry.
And how can you believe in God? God doesn't exist.
I'm not asked. One of them, is it? And where are you so mad about this?
But what happened to you he didn't know what to do.
He just it was blocked, which?
When I was 15 I had a crisis of faith. I told you the my father had me to come to the Lord when I was 7 years old, but when I was 15 the Communist propaganda started to get me, the Communist propaganda said that only stupid people and all the
ladies are believing in God. That was the main idea in the Communist program.
On that end. I looked in the meter, and I didn't see an old lady.
I had very good grace, and I was on the top students in my my school, and I declare God doesn't exist because I'm a smart guy.
My parents, when they saw my attitude, didn't start fighting with me.
I was going with my friends and trying to do the you know the teenager stuff because I was. That doesn't exist, and that I can do whatever I want. And every time when I came back home in the evening I saw my parents on their knees praying for me.
My father told me just one thing. You know what you made a covenant with alert.
You forgot about it. He didn't.
I was 15. Okay, that was in the spring. I started that in the fall it was cold outside.
It was November changed, you know, is like here in November, when it rains, and nothing to do.
And there was in my home, and I my room.
And I said, Okay, yeah, I don't have anything to.
I open the Bible the first time after so many months, the one that used to read a lot from the one they've got.
Anyway, I open the Bible, and this load just spoke to me.
And I realized that I'm a sceneer, that I need to renew my relationship with Alert and to let him work in my heart.
That help me so much? Because from that point on my face got stronger and stronger every time I was reading from the word of card I was learning about the love of the Lord, and also he's wonderful plan for me that's help me a lot.
It's. Don't be afraid to have questions and to deal with them.
The Lord that loves us so much, he is always there to answer to our questions.
Do this, and to let the Spirit of the Lord deal with your concerns, your problems, your questions, and also with your needs, your desire to know Him, and to come closer to Him.
I was criticized. After that I was criticized so much, and they said, Oh, you was smart guy in the in our school.
You are a Christian, and you are doing this and that because the Communists wanted to take us on Sundays to do activities and I refused to do that on Sunday I was going to the Assembly I was going with my family to to worship the
Lord and they told them I'll never come on Sundays.
Right? You have the other days of the week. In that time we didn't study 5 days a week like we do today.
It was 6 days from Monday to Saturday.
I learned a lot of things.
But that was happened, and but only Sundays were the free day for for the students, and they come straight to enslave us, keeping us all the time.
In that I refused, and I was criticized, and I was on the because I had very good grades.
They couldn't do a lot on that, but they could card me for different rewards, and they stopped me going to different represent the school on different levels in your unit.
You know, on competitions. All this stuff.
In the beginning. Bother me, but on time I realized that it's so important to stay strong in your faith, because people, my, the markers, the people they mocked me.
Actually they started to respect me.
And I saw that even when I was arrested when I was arrested, I was set on the side of the cells with the most dangerous criminals, because the guards said, Okay, those guys sold we'll do a lot of bad things to this to this question.
But they asked me, Hey, why are you here? And I told them it's I'm a Christian, and I wanted to give Bibles to people and man.
What in the they brought you here, and when somebody tried to hurt me, those big guys, the most dangerous people in in the block there protected me.
You cannot imagine that, but that is the way the Lord works, and He helps you to be strong and to continue to be stronger.
And they started to come to me, and then started to ask me questions about different problems in their life.
And this kind of stuff. Yeah, Jesus suffered, and we suffer as questions as well.
But we don't have to stop loving people around us.
I was playing for people that were tortured me when I was beat them up, and one of them said, Hey, what are you doing now?
And I said, I'm praying for you. What I'm praying for you.
They promise me that they'll never leave that room alive and as a lord I mean your hands.
If you want want to take me, I'm yours. But please have this guys to know you and help me to be a pass to you and those praying for that, and they I don't know what they said. But.
What they saw, but they said, Hey, what are you doing here, my friends?
We have to continue loving people, loving people in God's way is the only way to open the weight of the door or salvation for that.
If we do not love them enough, they will continue on that scenes and in their problems.
We have people that hurt us, it's true, but if we learn how to do it, showing the love of Christ, those people will stop hurting us.
Justice new who he was, where he had come from, and where he was going.
So all of us should know the same. Our strength is is not in ourselves.
We have to realize that this weak bodies, some of you are bigger guys.
Okay. I'm talking about me. I must, Molly. I when I was arrested I was maybe 110 pounds.
I was like this. It's if I wouldn't be. Be careful.
The wind could take me. Hi, vet, man, I was really, really skinny, but doesn't matter, because you are strong in the Lord, and He helps you to overcome different problems.
But only as we knew, our minds with the spiritual truth of the Scripture, will move our thinking into alignment with the reality of who we are in Christ.
We have to trust the word I've got is reliable.
Is the truth of God. Learn, take those the passages. When you are home, take one, each of them prayfully, then start thinking about who you are in Christ.
Because we have significance and identity only as children of God.
Loving people is a wonderful thing, not because we have a big heart, but because we have an obedient heart, not because we are very sensitive to the people's needs, but because the number made us sensible to the needs of people around us, is the work, of the spirit.
Let the spirit of the Lord work in your heart, and you'll enjoy being Christians.
We've deal with different types of people. For example, the very resourceful people.
Those are mentors. They give the wisdom if we ask them.
You'll never find mentor running after people to be mentored.
No, is the duty of you that want to be mentored to find a mentor.
During my lifetime I had 4 mentors.
It's one on the spiritual realm, another one and academic, real, another one on family environment and another one and business, you know, because I'm one of the.
Guys that started that university in Romania. I had to deal with a lot of business things as well, but mainly because I want you to go spiritually and to have a life aligned with Christ, and I was chasing people to become my mentors.
I was asking them. I told them, we can. Okay, sir, I need this and this and this and that, and you can help me in this area.
Will you please, taking to consideration to meet with me once a month?
It's your in your terms just to meet with me, and I just want to tell you what is going on, and they need somebody to, just to tell me back.
You know how important that is. Those people became. Some of my best friends, because they pour their heart into me, and I open my heart to them, and I wanted to grow, and they saw that it was like a sponge.
It was sucking it. What the Lord gave me to them.
When you are still in the age that you can look for mentors.
Do that. Some of you are already mentors be available to people.
It is a blessing you know. It's we have example from Paul and Timothy.
It's Paul became the mentor for Timothy and the Titus.
He started to call Timothy, his beloved son.
The relationship grew from a mentor mentee to one of the spiritual parent and a spiritual son.
Those are very resourceful people, and every assembly that is blessed with these kind of people.
It's can grow. If those people are available, and if the others are willing to be mentally well, another category is a very important people, people that share our vision and ask us tough questions.
I love. When people are asking me the tough question that means they are interested in what I'm doing, and they want to help me.
You cannot be helped if you are not transparent.
If you don't talk about the real problems and the real needs and it's it is a blessing.
When we have this kind of important people in our life, they're very tainable people.
Usually those are younger Christians than are catching our vision and want to learn and serve, because Christianity is relational, we always transferred to each other our knowledge, our thoughts, our things.
The Lord put on our house, and we have people that are really interested to know more, and we should help those.
Very nice people. The fourth category I hear you have people that enjoy our passion, but do not contribute to it.
They just say, Oh, good job, Ellie! Say you are doing a good job.
Oops is not very helpful, but at least they don't hinder and they don't stop you doing your work and the very draining people, and we have to deal with these kind of things, and they are the most tiring people they sap our passion by causing conflicts
and or looking for comfort and recognition, people that are adjust there to hinder God's work and to disturb the spiritual atmosphere of the assembly.
We deal with the all these kind of things. When I was younger I didn't have enough wisdom to avoid the last candidate.
I'm sorry I spent a lot of times, many hours, days, months, years, trying to help those people.
I love them, and I tried to help them to tell them that they are wrong.
Who in the world like sex, is wrong.
Finally I realized that actually, you cannot do. You cannot save everybody.
And I said, okay.
We have 3 months to work on those issues. I still work with them but I said, Okay, we have 3 months this is your decision, this issue, this issue.
Okay.
We will meet, hey? Every other week we, we study Lord of God.
We fast. We just stay before the Lord, and see what He wants from us to do.
If in 3 months we don't have a closure, we stop.
Some of them, they are saying that I'm too tough because they like to be pampered, they like to to be with people and to be they being taken into consideration, you know.
No, if you have what to do, you have to know how to balance your life and your ministry.
Hi, I have some good results. Some of those draining people very draining people became nice people or painable people, but it takes time.
It will be interesting to decide for yourself where you are and if you are troublemakers, repent, my friends, don't do this.
In. Don't do this in in God's house, in God's work.
Yeah. Bend, try to understand that God's work is a lot bigger than all of us, and He wants all of us to be part of it.
And we can do this only with the humble spirit, with a desire to serve him.
In obedience following Christ. Okay.
Oh, man! I missed an application.
Yes, sir! Oh!
Usually when somebody is asking tough questions, does that with the desire to learn more about what you are doing and what should be done?
But the troublemaker is, it doesn't matter what you say.
He comes with the butt.
Yeah, you are saying this, but.
Is a very big difference, because one is interested in helping the other.
One is interested in attacking. Yeah.
Okay, you have before loving others compassionately.
Please look at the personal application. You have it right?
Let me see where.
Okay, on page 5.
In the middle, and after that on page 5 on the bottom, loving others compassionately.
Please read the questions and answer them in a few seconds.
I don't know what was your intention coming here.
But I would like each of you to see this time more than a classroom setting with a intellectual exercise, or even some switch or things in it.
Try to see it as a time for personal reflection and learning about yourselves, and how to grow more in knowing the Lord than in serving Him.
Use this time breaking the barrier that is in your mind that you are here for a few lessons.
It's not about lessons.
It is about life.
Try to do that I know that it's not easy.
Some of you already are beyond all those. Those things I'm talking right now, but some of you may be your needs to overcome your biases and to go lead to further.
Yeah.
And that is the introduction for paradigm and holistic spirituality.
We will be talking about 3 word views. We have here materialism.
Everything is material.
On the impersonal product of time and chance. I will stop that.
When I was in grammar school, in high school and in college, in Albania, but nothing, not what they said nothing from what they said.
Fell in the right place, because they did the hell arguments.
It was so funny when I was talking with my philosophy.
People, and I was giving them the Christian arguments. They're blocked.
They didn't have any answer for that.
But it's still in this world. Many people think that materialism is the right world view, and you meet those people and you deal with these people.
Idealism.
The ultimate reality is not material, but spiritual, but not a personal being, but the all that is.
You have these kind of things. It's in materialistic.
We have not really some atheism and humanism, and we have a lot of humanistic views in the Assembly.
Unfortunately, idealism. You will find it in.
Pante, Ismonism, Constantalism, New Age, movement, and will.
Ultimate reality is an infinite, intelligent, and personal guard.
I'm talking about the Christian taste, because we have also other tasting views that are not Christian.
In order to change from a worldview to another, we have to change our paradigm.
Paradigm is a way of seeing based on implicit or explicit rules that shape one's perspective.
And always we are fighting.
Opposing paradigms, no temple, and the eternal.
We are always fighting with us in our mind. We have a lot of struggle.
How to believe and how to see different things, and unfortunately, many times we see them from the tempo, all perspective, and not so much from the eternal perspective.
Holistic spirit. Well, it talks about the centrality of Christ.
And he's relevance.
Do every compartment of our lives.
You know that us as men, we are very. We have a compartmentalized mind, you know that we mean the we mean works on the vertical and on her assignment.
Men's brain works only on the vertical, and for this reason we think on different compartments.
Unfortunately, we use this way of doing things in the church, in our relationship with alert, we start to think that it's important for us to have a spiritual life.
But one of our compartments, not as a whole.
We need to pray for wisdom to seek Christ in all things.
Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs is called Skill.
It is the skill in the art of living life with each area under the dominion of Christ.
The ability to use the best means to accomplish the best ends.
That is a voice. Person has all his areas of life put together under the lordship of this is Christ.
Not only certain aspects.
In the sphere of the load is reverence, respect, and humility.
Marked by obelience. These are basic things.
I I don't stop here.
If we want an integrated life, we don't have to see.
Our spiritual life is like one of the many areas.
Like family work, society, or serving others.
An integrated life has a strong connection between face and living, between belief and character, between profession and practice.
They have to be aligned at the same level. You can't be.
I don't know a Christian leaving like a beggar.
You can't be.
Here is they. They are so upset that people don't realize this.
In my sessions, of counseling. Some people are coming with that attitude.
You know what I'm a Christian. I was born in a Christian family.
I was baptized, and I did this. I understand that things. Okay.
So it's why I can't stop drinking.
It's what is the connection between those 2? Where do you see the connectivity?
That is a miss, that if you are born in a Christian family, if you are baptized, and you call yourself a question that you will be free from different things.
That is a miss. I don't know if you realize that.
If you don't have.
True repentance in your life. If you don't start hating the scene, if you don't ask, the Lord is the only source or salvation for you to clean your life and to change you.
You is a background question.
Phase and living should be a line on the Christ level.
If we call ourselves Christians.
Believe in character. Oh, yeah, I believe in God. I believe in Christ.
I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in theternal life, but.
Cheating, lying, hey? Other things are part of your daily life.
That is not integrated, live!
Unfortunately, when we decide to follow Christ and to have an integrated life, the tension doesn't stop there, and it will be always, or a fight between temporary and we can lose our focus and sleep back into a compartmentalized lifestyle based on a few things first of all matter realism.
Interested too much in this world, in making a lot of money here, because we think that if we have a title, if you have a certain account, if we have a certain car, if we have a certain the house some, if we have a certain wife, I that is the the level.
of success, you know the symbol of success and youth are that persons are very important. Person.
No, that this is not reality, because if you get everything you want to have.
What do you think you'll be satisfied?
No, you want more and more and more.
It's it's like a drug addict person.
Materialism is injecting in your ways the drug that is asking for more and more every day.
And that will take you back from integrated life to a compound compartmentalized life, thinking that you know better.
We think that we have a better understanding and desire for what is best for us, then, that God does, trying to find happiness apart from God.
Yeah, sometimes we think that we know better than God what we need.
We tell him he doesn't listen to us because it's not true.
Then we take our desk in our hands, we're great in our way.
Yeah, I'm the captain of my boat right?
Thanks you not that song!
It's a lot of truth in that song, because it talks what people think, and that will bring them happiness and satisfaction and significance.
Spiritual anemia. We live in a society that doesn't encourages, that doesn't encourage that.
Involvement to become fervent, to become in fire for the Lord.
Oh, the society! Is there a cool down, hey, man, don't get so exciting!
You can have a heart attack or something like that. The society is not helping us now that, and unfortunately we are in our Christian communities many times 2 extremes.
Some people that are very cool, very quiet, and the others that are showing the speechuality, jumping, and screaming, and doing all these kind of things.
Now both are wrong.
If if you in your heart you have the desire to serve the Lord, and you are in fired for him, show it, you know it's.
I'm teaching my students when they preach. Some of them.
They? Yes, I know that to like sports. Right? Yeah. Sure. In Europe, soccer is a big big sport, right?
Okay? When do you see your team winning? What do you say when you preach about Christ?
And you pitch about the salvation. He gave us a wonderful thing.
She provided for us. You talk like being dead.
What is your excitement? Who is that that fire that should come from you?
Make everybody, it being ready and willing, would be part of that worship line.
Don't get bored because you'll get burnout.
Trust me!
And playing to the wrong audience.
We are in a big trap here. We like to be honored by people to be respected by people to be, you know, recognized as being somebody by people around us.
Not everybody. Some are holier than others. Anyway. What happened?
Because you like to be accepted by people.
You buy things you don't need. You it you don't like you go to places you don't appreciate, just because the others who say, Oh, brotherly!
Say, look at him is doing this and this and this and that, friends, that is a trap. It's not helping anybody.
B. Honest and transplant before the Lord and before people, and you will be respected because Christ lives in you.
That is important. Yeah.
Anyway.
Trying to be pleased by others, you become artificially and you show me tense, and Jesus called them Fatty Seas, right?
Yeah, those guys that's follow the law. So strict.
That you could say only Alie, Louella, Lord! But in their hearts they were cold, dead, and full of hate and resentment.
Okay.
Personal application.
Can we start here?
You have 4 questions. Right? No.
Is on page.
6 right in the center.
No!
Base, 7, right.
On the on the bottom. Yeah.
Okay.
Hey!
Yeah. On page 6, you have those.
Boom questions. Our time is up. It's we should stop at 12.
Okay.