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Miracles only happen to people who don't give up!!

Don't underestimate miracles

Lutheran churches

The Lutheran churches, most of which are members of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), emerged from one of the prominent strands of the Reformation movements within the (western) Catholic Church in the 16th century. In the course of the doctrinal controversies of that time, the doctrine of justification by faith through grace alone became the decisive issue and the hallmark of Lutheran teaching. It emphasizes that God redeems human beings from the power of sin through the cross of Jesus Christ and confers God's own righteousness upon them. The Lutheran tradition considers the preaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments, received and responded to in faith without any human merit, as central to the life of the church. The Lutheran confessional writings, e.g., the Augsburg Confession and Martin Luther's Small Catechism, interpret core convictions regarding the significance of the gospel for individual and common life in faith. The Bible is affirmed as the sole rule of faith, to which all the creeds and other traditions and beliefs are subordinated.

Lutheran churches are partners in the majority of church communion agreements that have been established, e.g., the Leuenberg Concord (1973, now called Community of Protestant Churches in Europe), the Meissen Agreement (1991), the Porvoo Agreement (1992), and Full Communion agreements in the USA and Canada.

Varying forms of worship have developed over the centuries, in interaction with local cultures. Lutheran worship tradition has sought to maintain liturgical continuity with the ancient church, in the reading and proclamation of the word of God and in the celebration of the sacraments, baptism and holy communion.

Lutheran churches strongly emphasize elementary and secondary religious education as well as theological study and research. The doctrine of the two rules of God has been a well-known part of Lutheran tradition: God reigns both in the secular world through secular and church government by means of law and in the spiritual world through grace. This teaching has at times been discredited through misinterpretation, e.g., in Nazi-Germany in the 1930s and ‘40s. In recent decades attempts have been made to reinterpret this teaching as a basis for critique of injustice, authoritarian regimes and destructive societal developments.

Protestant Church in Sabah

Church family: Lutheran churches
Based in: Malaysia
Present in: Singapore
Membership*:About membership
Pastors: 144
Lay workers: 56
Congregations: 307
Member of: WCC (1975)
CCA
CCM
LWF
Associate member of:
Website: www.gpcs.com.my

(Gereja Protestan di Sabah)

The roots of the Protestant Church in Sabah go back to German missionary work in Kudat in the beginning of the 20th century. But the PCS was founded in 1952 when the Basel Mission began to work among the Rungus people. The first converts were baptized in December 1952. In the years following, several villages embraced Christianity. Meetings of the headmen of the tribes were organized in order to facilitate evangelization. Another important factor was the training of lay people, not only biblical teaching but also language (Malay) and mathematics. The number of persons following the training was small but grew steadily. Gradually the Momogun people (one of the Rungus tribes) began to respond to the gospel. They noticed the difference between their way of life and that of the missionaries and the converts. They saw that the Christians among them were no longer bound by the traditional fears of evil spirits and other superstitions. Many sought to embrace the new faith. Today a truly indigenous church, the PCS consists of many indigenous tribes such as Rungus, Tobonuvo, Kimaragang, Garo and others. It has a Bible seminary with a four-year course for the training of pastors and a Bible school for shorter courses of one or two years. Since 1976 more than 200 people have been trained but not all serve full-time in the church.

In 1965 the constitution of the church was drafted and in 1967 it received official approval by the Basel Mission and the government of Malaysia. With the departure of the foreign missionaries in 1973, the Basel Christian Church in Malaysia (BCCM) came to support the church, and contacts were established with other Malaysian churches. From 1996, the PCS began to establish local congregations in the Peninsula (Western Malaysia) as well as in Singapore. It has also developed relationships with sister churches in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo.

The PCS acknowledges the holy scriptures - namely the Old and New Testaments - as the only basis of faith, with the Apostles' Creed as the safeguard of the faith. Each member is urged to take up the responsibility of proclaiming the gospel and witnessing to Christ.

What Is A Soulmate?

Many theories exist as to what is a soulmate. The original roots of the concept go back to a belief in reincarnation. A soulmate is someone that you have encountered in many different life times and have loved many times. That’s why the first time you meet them in this lifetime you feel as if you have known them forever before you even knew their name. There is a mystical deja vue energy right from the start. Can you have more then one soulmate during your lifetime? Originally, the answer was no. As the definition of the word soulmate has changed, so has that answer. People’s religious and spiritual beliefs deeply affects how they view the concept of soulmates.

First let me give a very basic explanation of reincarnation so that within that context the various theories as to what a soulmate is and how many you can have in one lifetime will make more sense. The core belief regarding reincarnation is that the creator castes the souls down onto the planet to live out a number of lifetimes until a bunch of predetermined lessons have been learned. Once those souls have finished learning all of their lessons, then they no longer have to come back as humans and can move on to another level where they become guardian angels or spirit guides over those who are still living out their life lessons. There are as many different variations on this concept as there are religions.

There has been a lot of research done to try and better understand the whole concept of past lives. You can find thousands of stories of people who have never met that remember the exact same lifetime together. There are stories of people who under hypnosis are able to recite details about a past life that are later researched and proven to be accurate. The research is still going on and nobody has proven for sure that we do or do not live more than once. However, there are enough fascinating case studies to warrant further study and debate.

It was originally believed that soulmates are created when the creator takes a soul and splits it into two as it is caste into human form. Each half is supposed to learn the life lessons at their own pace. When the two halves sometimes cross paths during various lifetimes, they have a cosmic powerful bond because they really are of the same soul. They complete each other. They are often very much alike, and the intensity of the connection is too much for a mere human with emotions and issues to handle, so they painfully end up parting ways. When they both finish their lessons, they are both reunited in heaven and come together as a beautiful representation of love and unity. This is also known as your twin flame. Only one person is the other half of your soul.

Another belief within the reincarnation teachings is that we spend numerous lifetimes with the same group of souls so that we can learn through karma. In one lifetime someone might be your spouse and in the next they might be your twin brother and in the next they might be your worst enemy and so on. The idea is that through all of these lifetimes together you learn cause and effect, an eye for an eye, that what comes around goes around. You may have abandoned your sick mother in one life and in the next life she’s your husband and then abandons you. Now the karma string is cut and you can move on through your other lessons without owing that debt anymore. These karma-mates feel very familiar and intense when you first meet them. It feels like you have some predestined life goal together. You can have many different karma-mates in one life. You can definitely love a karma-mate in numerous lifetimes and to some extent it can be easier then loving a soulmate.

Loving a soulmate or twin flame is often difficult because we are not usually able to love and accept ourselves, so why would we be able to love the other half of our own soul? It is somewhat easier to love a karma-mate because they are not as intense, they usually have a karmic reason for showing up in our lives, and we have agreed to meet and fall in love with them in order to work together on a project. Karma-mates can be easier to love and easier to hate. Soulmates can be deeply psychically connected with amazing love at first sight stories that end in magical happily ever after scenarios. Unfortunately, we are not usually evolved enough to handle something so intense as another person sharing our deepest soul level. Older souls that have many lifetimes of lessons and enlightenment under their belts have an easier time accepting such a deep connection with another person.

Today, people use the word soulmate to mean anyone that you fall madly in love with and feel the heavens have blessed your relationship. There are people claiming that more and more soulmates are being brought together during this time in history so that they can unite their forces to bring healing and loving energy back to this planet. Since nobody can prove or disprove any of this, who’s to say that all of the great loves in your life weren’t all soulmates? It used to mean a very rare and cosmic match that shares your same soul. All love is sacred and holy no matter what you believe about reincarnation and soulmates. We are better off not trying to force it into any one definition or to create a bunch of dogmatic rules around who does or does not get to call their beloved by the name of soulmate. Beautiful love stories will always exist with or without reincarnation being proven true or false. Love at first sight will always exist. Love will always be a mysterious magical unknown that nobody can fully explain.