INITAO, Misamis Oriental—The primate of the Territory of Southeast Asia and Europe of the International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church (ICCEC) urged the flock in the Diocese of Northern Mindanao to start fulfilling their God-potential to shine as witnesses to the world.
Archbishop Loren Thomas Hines, D.D., said that God used only his word to create everything. “But when he created man, he used his creative power to mold man. It took a consensus of the God-head to create man into God’s image and likeness.”
“What did it take to create the sun and everything? God’s word. But when He made man, he used His creative ability to make man in His image,” he added.
Since man is “like-God,” man has the God-potential and ability to make things happen, he said as he narrated that all the inventions we are enjoying today were invented because of God’s creativity he gave to their inventors.
Hines said that it is not impossible for man to create or invent things for man’s own benefit and use because “we are the chip of the old block. We were hewn from this block. We were created in God’s image.”
But what hinders the creative power and ability of God to flow freely through man is man’s own finite mind.
This is the reason, he said, why St. Paul in his letter to the Romans, urged the disciples in Rome to “renew their minds.”
“We need to conform our minds to the mind of God,” he said. And this can be done only by reading and meditating of His Word, the Bible.
“God is alive and He has a plan for you,” he added as he stressed that Christians must now take their place in the word and be witnesses by showing how great God is in their lives.
Hines, an American who thinks and acts like a Filipino having lived in the Philippines for more than three decades, said that he believes what some scientists claim that the earth is 5 billion years old because “that makes my God great.”
“How old is God? Genesis chapter 1 says that the earth and heaven were with God in the beginning. And I like to believe that the earth is 5 billion years old for that makes Him great,” of the said.
If God is great, there is no reason why Christians shouldn’t, mustn’t, couldn’t be great in this world, he stressed.
Abp. Hines teachings centered on “Humanity: Understanding our Beginnings,” which was the theme of the 2nd Family Convocation of the Charismatic Episcopal Church (CEC) at the Midway Beach Resort in Initao, Misamis Oriental recently.
The event, hosted by the Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer, based in Gingoog City, was aimed at helping the flock in the Diocese of Northern Mindanao find their bearings in a world full of confusion and help them steer towards the high waters of God’s compassion, grace and love in order foar them to really shine as bright lights in a dark and dreary world.
The CEC is part of the bigger family of Episcopal churches worldwide known as the International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church (ICCEC), an an international Christian communion established as an Autocephalous Patriarchate in 1992 with over 1,000 churches worldwide.
The ICCEC or Communion has its Apostolic Succession within the historical episcopate through the Rebiban line via the Roman Catholic Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa, who founded the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church.
The Communion’s first bishop and primate was Archbishop Austin Randolph Adler. (Bong D. Fabe)
