YOU CAN DO IT

Have you thought about what your purpose in life is?

Most of you were successful in deciphering this question they may have for quite some time now (which I’m hoping yes) and probably celebrating for the reason of the success of their hunt for years.

During my QT (quiet time), I came across on this portion from what I’m reading – capturing my full attention; which means by default I did these things [unconsciously]: sitting up straight, intense look on my book and clearing of my throat before continuing throughout that page.

Paradoxical propositions like: to live you must die (Mark 8:35), to gain you must give (Matthew 19:21), to rule you must serve (Luke 22:26) and suffering has purpose (Matthew 5:10-11).

The last one made such an impact on me making me play the replay button instantly to go back on the series of events I had from the past days, weeks, months and years.

Many suffer and yet they cannot figure out what is the purpose behind it. Is God punishing them? Is this what you call the capital K – karma? Or simply because you’re on the place where the suffering is wished-for to be thrown at and you just catch it? What if this is how life is planned, what will you do? WHAT IF…

The truth is suffering is God permitted. If Satan is about to bite you just so will get hurt, unless God won’t loosen the leash then Satan can’t reach and harm you. That’s how sovereign God is.  (Read Job)

We are called HIS children yet such thing is officially happening.

Simple. 1) He teaches you to be faithful to Him; and by this, the reason why you have faith in Him is not just because of what He can bless you with, but because He is the Master of your life.  2) Be more trusting to His power and capability 3) Surrender every area of your life to Him.  

The more we seek Him despite the situation, we are becoming more of Christ. We admit and humble ourselves that we fully depend on Him ALONE.

Regardless how deep the pit is where you at right now, you will be fine. He created us, He loves us and most importantly He wants you to be with Him. Just trust, obey and have faith. There’s a lesson He wants to teach that you will only realize in retrospect and all you can say while grinning is “Ahhh, kaya pala.”

GIVING DIRECTIONS

I remember having a conversation with the delivery man not so long ago on giving instructions on how he will reach our house. It may seem tricky at first due to many streets within the village but with careful thinking on how I will communicate to him the message will do the trick. Too many things will be put into consideration such as: 1) How much familiarity he has in the east area. 2) Landmarks that will be easily seen from afar. 3) Mode of transportation (if he’s going on commute which I’m praying NO or he’ll have his own car). Good thing he has his own means of transportation then, else I might have died giving a very detailed steps just to reach our home or I could’ve given up in an instance and told him “Let’s just meet at SM or probably Gateway.” Haha! Sometimes being so impatient of me makes me want to do things in a snap.

In our daily journey, we are like the delivery man. Christianity is full of directions and we must obey it for us to make sure we are on the right path and we will reach our travel of destination.

John 14:6

“I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Studying the Word gives us clear directions and we must simply follow them. Sounds easy? But the truth is, it is NOT. We need to follow instructions that will define us later in our life. Isn’t it amazing how these were already written for us? All we just have to do is trust and have a real relationship with Jesus.

Too many tests will come along the way; the work of devil will always be present. But may these verses give us the courage that God’s directions on us are what we need to listen and follow.

John 3:16

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

1 Corinthians 15:1-5

“Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.  By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.  For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. “

Salvation is achieved by Christ’s atonement, not by our attainment.

SET APART

What comes in your mind when you hear the word "holy"? I bet these will be your topmost answers:





Holy Bible | It's too holy that we no longer
wants to read it and most of us decides just
to keep it away.



 

Faithful, prayerful, sinless are some adjectives that describes the word holy.

Is holiness passè?

- Sometimes we distant ourselves from holy people. From those who read the bible, goes to church and knows to pray. What do we mean by holy people anyways?

- We are living in the New Testament, we are already saved. Living under Grace. Using this excuse "God's grace" is actually overrated.

J.C. Ryle

Heaven is a holy place. The Lord of heaven is a holy Being. The angels are holy creatures. Holiness is written on everything in heaven.

 

It is always SIN that sets us apart from our Father. We are born under the descendants of Adam and we have that inherited sin. We as humans has a sinful nature, we always compromise and has the mindset that what we need is just Grace and Mercy.

 

Have we thought at one point that God loves us? That His Son's sinless nature was turned into curse to pay for our sins? That He the God of Gods poured His wrath on us? He has the option to let us be sinners and not be saved. After all, He has a chosen nation - the Jews, but aren't we lucky that we are Gentiles? We have the time given to use so we can work and deserve that salvation, too? The liberty of studying His Word, knowing who Jesus Christ is are just a few privileges that a Gentile may have.

 

Living a sinless life is actually near to impossible. It is a constant battle with Satan to keep that faithfulness to Jesus.

 

Hopefully that we will NOT stop being just a Christian, because being a Christian is not JUST enough.

 

We need to be Godly, Follower of Jesus Christ and most importantly, we have a REAL relationship with The One :)

KEEPSAKE

Too many boxes were filled with little memories from my friends since I was in grade school. Keeping something from a classmate you've had a great time with is nice to look at when you feel like reminiscing; being nostalgic helps you relax and having a trip back down the memory lane is healthy especially if you get connected with them again. I got pens, stationary set, little notebooks, stickers and cards.

We feel somehow connected to the person where that little thing came from. I guess, this is a clear validation that we hold onto these items because of one simple reason - that's the only thing that reminds us how special someone may used to be.

DATA ON THE GO

If you are always out of the country and you want to keep in touch with your family, then data is something that you always want to have on your phone, right? We can't always rely that there will be free WiFi, if there will be open network mostly it is really sloooooooow :( hasselhoff naman oh?! Hehe.

 

So fret no more peeps! SMART has the answer to your data needs, for as low as Php450 per day then you are sure you'll be connected 24hrs to your loved ones. Amazing! That's why I'm loving Smart :)

 

HOW FAST CAN YOU GIVE IT UP?

Blame the allergies I got from eating Binagoongan na Baboy and thankfully that Soniphen did its wonder once more and now I'm much better. Just relaxing and making myself commit to my solid vow that NO MORE binagoongan na baboy in the next decade. Argh, I hate allergies because of the patches that show on your skin and I just simply hate how bad I am with allergies. In short, being in a bad shape for more than 2 days will leave me grumpy and cranky.

Why on earth I ate it? That's the question that ran on my mind the entire shift and drank tons of water somehow relieved the itchiness while Cetirizine has not yet kicked-in. Good thing OTC med always come handy in my pouch together with meds for LBM, cold, headache/fever and toothache, there were some band-aids, too.

Then why still I ate it considering that I may put myself on the risk of getting an allergy? Being a pollotarian's dilemma if you don't have a packed lunch with you, then you are in trouble. Due to prior commitments that day, I opted not to bring with me my baon and decided to get something from the cafeteria for lunch instead. Too bad, it was all meat day and I didn't get the memo :(

 

Same thing with our decisions in life, most of the time we are careless and doesn't think of the consequences at all. What matters to us is the current situation and future is not yet here so why worry? Very true, isn't it? Guilty as charged, I just wolfed down on my lunch and got allergies after filling my tummy.

 

Lessons this little unstudied act taught me:

 

You always have a choice - I could've gotten a quick grab on a nearby fastfood but decided not to since I was too complacent that our cafeteria will serve fish, veggies or chicken. The truth is, I have Jollibee and Mc Donald's along the way but laziness won that time and I gave in. Pfffft!

 

Don't compromise if you are not sure - It's not always good to take risks especially if you are not studying the situation before hand or you don't have salient points covering that you are on the lead.

 

It pays to be careful and prepared - We will never kow when a disaster (disaster talaga? lol!) comes. So dapat handa, like you have umbrella on your bag, meds, tissue, wet tissue and alcohol. Haha! Dapat mala Doraemon ang bag mo, kumpleto halos :)

 

The Bible says “By his wounds,” meaning Jesus’ wounds, we are healed? (1 Peter 2:24) And that the Bible also reminds us that one of God’s benefits is that he “heals all your diseases?” (Psalm 103:2-3) These 2 verses, I keep on repeating it over and over and I claim that I am healed :)

WE CAN'T BE TODDLERS FOREVER

Call me the weirdest, but I'm just scared of any animal that is out of cage. If some of you are afraid of cockroaches then count me in 10 times exagg with all the animals that you can think of. Probably a puppy is an exemption since I remember one time I was left with no choice but to hold it. Lol!

 

So our dear cat and rabbit gave birth this week and this gave me the fright of my life. Like, yeah I was left with no choice but to feed the baby rabbit (kittens). The mother rabbit was so, so crazy to keep on hopping and just forgot to nurse the kittens. It was induced, and we bought baby milk and syringe so just they will not die. They can survive for 48hrs without milk, too bad out of the 6 kittens, only 2 female (kittens) survived. It will run for about 4 weeks that they will be drinking warm baby milk.

 

We are no different to these kittens drinking milk because they're new born. That happens when you accepted Jesus Christ to be your Savior and surrendered everything to Him - born again, born in Christianity. We are like babies and drinking milk is like reading the words for us to be strong and healthy.

 

1 Peter 5:10

After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.

 

It's indeed our milk since we are still infants in our faith, these words will help us to work on our Christianity. We need to grow that faith, we need to work on our Christianity. By reading and making sure that we fully understand it, then we will be sure that we are growing each day.

 

Psalm 119:28

My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word.

 

We cannot be toddlers forever in our faith. Yes, we are following His commands, His words yet we are not living it. If we keep on doing this, we won't grow but we will be just toddlers in our faith. We are on our 30s yet we are like 2 years old. We keep on doing the same thing over and over yet we know for a fact that isn't right. Maybe we are so good in making ourselves believe and reason out "Okay lang yan, there is God's Grace naman eh", "Ayos lang yun bro, Merciful naman si God eh" so ang ending, inom at yosi pa rin with murahan pa on the side. C'mon these are just sample but doing side deals is beginning to be a habit. Supporting each other from the community we serve yet we tolerate wrongdoings. Who are we fooling then?