Most of us can’t imagine that we’d ever reject God. But the sad truth is many of us is doing it without realizing it. When we insist living our way we are already rejecting God by our actions. The Israelites rejected God by asking for a king. The LORD answered Samuel, “Comply with the people’s request—everything they ask of you—because they haven’t rejected you. No, they’ve rejected me as king over them. They are doing to you only what they’ve…
Do you remember all the wonders God has done to you? Do you remember to stop and say thank you? Samuel shows us how to remain faithful and remember your God also when things are going well. When the Israelites had defeated the Philistines…Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Jeshanah. He named it Ebenezer, explaining, “The LORD helped us to this very point.”(1 Sam. 7:12, CEB) Ebenezer literally means the stone of help. It…
Is your faith rooted in yourself or have you set your heart firmly on God? Is your faith truly grounded in God? Or do you still try to manipulate God in order to get what you want? Today God is calling us to examine our hearts and minds. Who does rule our hearts? Then Samuel said to the whole house of Israel , “If you are turning to the LORD with all your heart, then get rid of all the…
How is your lenten journey going? I have found praying on my knees being a huge blessing so far. I have been praying that God would open my eyes to see my hidden sins. Those things that are not pleasing to God but I am unable to see myself. This morning when I was searching for another book I came across Gail Godwin’s novel “Evensong”. I could not help but notice a couple sticky notes peeking out of the book…
I have always wondered why people insist that Christianity is about being good. That all decent, good people are going heaven. Hence our salvation would be based on works or our behavior. But the Bible is telling us the polar opposite: You are saved by God’s grace because of your faith.This salvation is God’s gift. It’s not something you possessed. It’s not something you did that you can be proud of. Instead, we are God’s accomplishment, created in Christ Jesus…
Even though the world around us is full of marks of death and dying we try to deny our own mortality. We like to live in La-La Land and pretend we are not aging and our life will go on forever. But the sooner we face the reality: we are dust and we will return to dust, the better we can embrace living fully. Like a parent feels compassion for their children— that’s how the LORD feels compassion for those…
“The New Testament word for repentance means changing one’s mind so that one’s views, values, goals, and ways are changed and one’s whole life is lived differently”, J.I. Packer states. “The change is radical, both inwardly and outwardly; mind and judgment, will and affections, behavior and lifestyle, motives and purposes, are all involved. Repenting means starting a new life.” Lent is a blessed time: we can slow down and actively reflect on our spiritual journey. We can chance the course…
Happy Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday! Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday that marks the beginning of Lent. The season of Lent is a special time when we are called to prepare our hearts and minds to Easter. Some people give up something (meat, sweets, TV etc) for Lent and some take something on (f.e. a certain spiritual discipline) for this period of 40 days before Easter. The main idea is to seek God and let him show what areas of our lives need…
Somehow we humans want to be better than we are. We’d like to be perfect. But we are not. There’s no one without fault. “There’s not one totally good person on earth, Not one who is truly pure and sinless.” (Ecc. 7:20, MSG) God knows this. That’s why he sent Christ to the world. So we would have a way back to him. Because we could never make it on our own. Why is then that we’d like to fake…
Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? Do you have hard time believing that you are truly forgiven? We proclaim -often without thinking- in the Apostolic Creed “I believe in the forgiveness of sins”. But do we really, really believe? Do we live in the joy of forgiveness? Because being free is what Christian living is all about. If we are still carrying the burdens ourselves, we are not truly trusting God’s grace to do its job. We have…
