Do you avoid choosing? Do you push decision-making as far as possible? Or do you like everything settled, clear and precise? I guess that depends on your personality (Whether you are P or J in the Myers-Briggs type indicator). I’ve learned of myself that I would like to keep my options open until I am 100% sure that my decision is the right one. But rarely do we have that kind of certainty in life, do we? We have to…
You know that faith is a gift from God. You can’t earn it, you can just receive it. Just as spiritual gifts in general, also faith is inspired and brought to pass by one and the same Holy Spirit. All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when. (1 Cor. 12:11, MSG) If you have had the pleasure to receive the gift of…
Do you have a strong spiritual immune system? Are you robust in spiritual health? How do you maintain it? How can you boost your own spiritual immune system? Let’s continue our journey towards healthy spiritual immune system. In the first part of the series I presented a formula for spiritual health. We need to have a healthy diet and a good balance of exercise and rest. All that together equals as the spiritual immune system. God (the Spiritual Immune System)…
Is it hard to believe that God is more interested in you than what you do? That God is more interested in who you are becoming than what you are getting done? So often we are so concerned about our (or other people’s) behavior that we forget what really matters. Psalm 1 declares that people who delight in the Lord are blessed. They are like like a tree firmly planted and tended by the streams of water. At the same…
One of the most important life lessons is to learn to deal with disappointments. They are part of life and we need to learn to deal with them in order to live well. If we don’t…well, we become bitter and do not live well. When other people disappoint us, we get frustrated. When we disappoint ourselves, we get depressed. And when circumstances work against us, we get discouraged. How could we learn to stay hope-filled in the midst of disappointments?…
We are called to be one in Christ…but we are not succeeding very well, are we? Living in unity seems like a balancing act sometimes. How can we who are so different live in harmony? How can we respect everyone and allow each other freedom in Christ? These are the questions I’ve been mulling over lately. Blessedly I learned five things about walking in love from Romans 14:13-23. 1) We need to stop criticizing at once. Everyone we meet is…
How are your Christmas preparations coming along? Are you stressed out about what to wear or how to get everything done on time? Maybe it is time to take time out. Maybe it is time to see what really matters. Maybe it is time to make sure we’re not oblivious to God. But make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze…
Somehow I had always felt sorry for Leah because she was the unwanted bride. Her relationships with her father, her sister, and her husband were difficult to say the least. But as I dug into the story of Leah little deeper, I found out that there was no need to be sorry for her. Leah was quite a woman of faith despite of all the rough circumstances in her life. When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened…
Why does God test us? What do you think? The Bible is pretty clear about this. This is how Moses answered: The Lord your God is testing you to see if you truly love him with all your heart and soul. Serve only the Lord your God and fear him alone. Obey his commands, listen to his voice, and cling to him. (Deut.13:3-4; NLT) Kurt Bubna states in his new book Epic Grace, Chronicles of a Recovering Idiot “God will…
What makes you yield into temptation? If we know this, we are more likely not to yield into temptation. Because then we know for what to pray. And that’s the key to living well. When we invite God into our lives, we are empowered to victorious living. That’s why the chapter ten of Mary DeMuth‘s new book The Wall Around Your Heart concentrates on this very important matter. Mary gives us a new way to look at temptations. She writes…
