At the end of life your heart will be either hard or tender. You can be either bitter or better, despite what has happened to you. Really. Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life. (Proverbs 4:23, AMP) We are called to guard our heart. We are called to ooze love and grace. But how can we if our hearts have been walked on? How can…
Do you know what to do when your inner accuser blames you for this or that? Do you know how to show the door to the devil? Do you know how to deal with doubts or inconveniences? Just worship. For real. The power of worship is beyond this world. For real. What a stack of blessing you have piled up for those who worship you, Ready and waiting for all who run to you to escape an unkind world. (Psalm…
Life is sometimes really yucky. Sometimes it really feels that all we do is shoveling dirt. How could we conquer the mount of dirt in our lives? How should we respond to all the dirt thrown our way? One thing is certain. If we store inside of us all the accusations or wrong doings we’ve experienced, we will burst or, at least, feel yucky. We need to learn to deal with the dirt in our lives. Otherwise we will drown…
Are you feeling small or fenced in? Maybe your perspective is off kilter. When we are focused on ourselves, our lives gets smaller and smaller. But when we open our eyes to help others, our lives get larger and larger. The world of the generous gets larger and larger; the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller. (Proverbs 11:24, MSG) And when we focus our eyes on God, our lives are getting even more spacious. In the Hebrew language…
Do you walk with God? Do you know how to walk with God? You know, walking with God should be the most natural state of being for a Christian. Just as walking comes naturally to human beings. But what could walking with God entail? How would you describe walking with God? When we are reconciled to God by grace through faith, our Christian walk begins. Walking with God means that we have an on-going communion with God, we abide in…
Do you worry about how your life is going to turn out? Or do you worry about how your life is going to end? If you are a friend of Jesus, there’s no need to worry. Whatever it is, Jesus got it covered. If you live with God, there’s no need to stress. Whatever it is, Jesus got it covered. Behold, I am with you all the days (perpetually, uniformly, and on every occasion), to the [very] close and consummation…
Do you blame God for the messiness of your life? Do you think it’s God’s fault that your life is complicated? Do you think it’d be God’s responsibility to keep your life smooth? You are not alone. But you are still mistaken. You see, ways of God are straight. Always. But sin makes our paths unnecessarily crooked. Hence it is not God who complicates our life. What a God! His road stretches straight and smooth. Every God-direction is road-tested. Everyone…
What if fasting is a blessing? The early church put fasting and prayer together as ways of seeking God’s guidance. Why don’t we? So they commissioned them. In that circle of intensity and obedience, of fasting and praying, they laid hands on their heads and sent them off. (Acts 13:3, MSG) Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his famous book Cost of Discipleship reminds us of the importance of fasting as a part of discipleship ” If there is no element of asceticism in our…
Sometimes our path of life seems so desert-like. Stone after stone after stone. We might feel that God has abandoned us in the middle of nowhere. We would like that our pathway of life would be something else than it is. Or at least we would like to see where we are going. The picture above reminds me of the fact that, even though, our path seems not to have consistency or any other quality we think a happy path…
Do you want to grow in wisdom? I think we all do. But do you know how that happens? The Bible gives us a very clear answer: Skilled living gets its start in the Fear-of-God, insight into life from knowing a Holy God. (Proverbs 9:10, MSG) I knew this and I try to live it out every day of my life. But that’s not all, folks! This very morning I read from the Acts how the church throughout Judea, Galilee,…
