Julia's posts with tag: bible
God and I are close, He tells me things, things that are true and never weird. Sometimes hard to fathom but He always wants me to understand...not in the way humans go ahead and nod and say "Sure sure I got it" but they don't, He doesn't want that. We don't want that when we're being listened to...so He makes himself very clear and loves you so that you get Him.
Uni Verse Your hand brushes my face, and your arms draw me close. You trace my name in the sand, and read it to me. This is where it stays. This is where you make your promise. These are memories yet to be made Buried deep in a mind That will one day know yours."
When I wrote Uni Verse I was being sentimental. I'm emo, yes, friends know, without the bratty side. Baduy in other words, but always sincere. I thought about the title very carefully. I wanted it to mean something. Simply put, in Uni Verse, almost a year ago, I was writing about something I didn't have, but wanted, it was on the shores of Aliguay Island that the wind somewhat whispered inspiration, when I was writing my name in the sand, I knew someday someone would write it for me, I can take that as literally or metaphorically, only God knows. The word Uni is taken from the latin which means "one"... and naturally, verse follows. I wrote one verse about one moment, that has not happened yet.
I split the word Universe but at the same time the meaning of it as a single word still plays its part in the title. Isn't it true that when one loves (that speaks for all kinds of love) one feels as big as the universe, nothing feels bigger than the moment you remember or realize it. In one stansa I was talking about the feeling...then in a flash, today, God came to me with its meaning, or the relevance rather of my Uni Verse.
Isn't it true? All it took was 1 verse... Genesis one : one, 1:1 a Uni Verse, and a universe came to be... so that's the way God would like me to understand the word Universe.
"Child, you write 1 verse for that which has not happened, but you found Me out. In the beginning I spoke and said 'Let there be light...' In one verse, My universe was made...so you could be in it. For now, let Me be the mind that knows yours tenderly...knows your pet peeves, the small things people unknowingly do that hurt you big and hurt Me as well, I also know the things that you still do sometimes that hurt others. I know your dreams, what makes your heart pound, what overwhelms you, what can bring on your most beautiful smile, and the adventures you secretly plan that you think might be too wonderful or out-of-the-box to carry out. I know how you want people to believe you when you say I'm real and I love when you tell them that they can express that they are angry at Me, people haven't gotten that for the longest time. I'd rather they be honest with me if they believe it is I Who have let them down. Even if some find it weird, or are maybe afraid to hope that I'm just here waiting, keep telling them the truth and I'll be with you whenever you do..."
I am not ashamed. I may be strange, but at least I'm me. I love You, God. I know nothing about my future except this, You will be with me in it. Because of that I am not afraid and hope never runs out...
Really nice message today sa our daily bread online :) And the glittery shirt I put on today happened to read "Pray" :) Napangiti pa yung girl sa starbucks "Ang ganda naman ng shirt mo, 'pray' pala." Kala ko aasarin niya ako, kasi kung ganun "sige dun nalang ako sa seattle's" hehehe. When [Jesus] had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. —Matthew 14:23 As a journalist, I have spent time with famous people who make me feel very small. I rarely sleep well the night before and have to fight a case of nerves. I wonder what I would do if seated at a banquet next to, say, Albert Einstein or Mozart. Would I chitchat? Would I make a fool of myself? In prayer I am approaching the Creator of all that is—Someone who makes me feel immeasurably small. How can I do anything but fall silent in such presence? How can I believe that whatever I say matters to God? The Bible sometimes emphasizes the distance between humans and God and sometimes the closeness. Without question, though, Jesus Himself taught us to count on the closeness. In His own prayers He used the word Abba (Daddy), an informal address that Jews had not previously used in prayer. A new way of praying was born. Jesus understood better than anyone the vast difference between God and human beings. Yet He did not question the personal concern of God, who watches over sparrows and counts the hairs on our heads. He valued prayer enough to spend many hours at the task. If I had to answer the question “Why pray?” in one sentence, it would be, “Because Jesus did.” — Philip Yancey For Further Study
Many of us don’t pray to God on His terms. Learn from our Lord’s model for prayer by reading Jesus’ Blueprint For Prayer on the Web at www.discoveryseries.org/hj891
If Jesus needed to pray, how can we do less?
from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers
His Nature and Our Motives . . . unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven —Matthew 5:20
"The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in his motives, having been made good by the supernatural grace of God. The only thing that exceeds right-doing is right-being. Jesus Christ came to place within anyone who would let Him a new heredity that would have a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus is saying, "If you are My disciple, you must be right not only in your actions, but also in your motives, your aspirations, and in the deep recesses of the thoughts of your mind." Your motives must be so pure that God Almighty can see nothing to rebuke. Who can stand in the eternal light of God and have nothing for Him to rebuke? Only the Son of God, and Jesus Christ claims that through His redemption He can place within anyone His own nature and make that person as pure and as simple as a child. The purity that God demands is impossible unless I can be remade within, and that is exactly what Jesus has undertaken to do through His redemption. No one can make himself pure by obeying laws. Jesus Christ does not give us rules and regulations— He gives us His teachings which are truths that can only be interpreted by His nature which He places within us. The great wonder of Jesus Christ’s salvation is that He changes our heredity. He does not change human nature— He changes its source, and thereby its motives as well."
Just when it was beginning to look bleak at work (in terms of motivation)...He throws a pan de sal party and throws in "futility" as the topic sandwich filling. I find Our Daily Bread online...although I have a feeling it's been there for awhile, but I found it when I most needed it. I like how it mentions soldiers beginning to lose hope or for the tougher ones get bored with what they're doing, beginning to feel like they're insignificant beneath unseen wings of glory. Ignatius the Saint said something very meaningful in the entry below. I don't really like the abbrev St. titles hehe makes it sound like they operate within the canonization of man like any doctor, engineer, or attorney when in truth men do not make saints. God does. I prefer to say the whole thing. It doesn't offend me when people use the abbrevs. For me lang yun when I refer to them. The last line for the featured entry was an arrow through the heart... http://www.rbc.org/odb/odb.shtml "I once heard interviews with survivors from World War II. The soldiers recalled how they spent a particular day. One sat in a foxhole; once or twice, a German tank drove by and he shot at it. Others played cards and frittered away the time. A few got involved in furious firefights. Mostly, the day passed like any other. Later, they learned they had just participated in one of the largest, most decisive engagements of the war, the Battle of the Bulge. It didn’t feel decisive at the time because none had the big picture.Great victories are won when ordinary people execute their assigned tasks. When followers of Ignatius (1491–1556) endured periods of futility, he always prescribed the same cure: “In times of desolation we must never make a change, but stand firm and constant in the resolutions and determination in which we were the day before the desolations.” Spiritual battles must be fought with the very weapons hardest to wield at the time: prayer, meditation, self-examination, and repentance. Perhaps you sense you’re in a spiritual rut. Stay at your assigned task! Obedience to God—and only obedience—offers the way out of our futility. — Philip Yancey When comforts are declining, He grants the soul again A season of clear shining, To cheer it after rain. —Cowper If you sense your faith is unraveling, go back to where you dropped the thread of obedience.
This is from the site of the man who shared Christ with Tito Jeric and my parents...reverend Dwight Hill, he was very loving to me when I was young and the content of his devotional site http://www.factsofthematter.org is simple but as sharp as a double edged sword every time...
WHEN GOD SEEMS DISTANT AND DISINTERESTED IN ME There are those times in our lives when God seems so far away; almost as though He doesn’t care or isn’t listening. I cry out to Him in the darkness and am greeted with deafening silence. Coupled with His sense of absence are those periods when the Scriptures seem so flat, and the Spirit so unavailable. Surely you have had those periods in your life, haven’t you? Or am I alone here? Jesus faced a profound sense of God’s abandonment at Calvary when He cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46). When the Lord Jesus uttered this chilling cry he was quoting from Psalm 22. Psalm 22:1 adds this to His anguish, “Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?” So just what are you to do in those times of spiritual crisis when you feel abandoned by God? Psalm 22 gives us a number of clues: · Choose to praise, honor and revere God: “You are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel...You who fear the Lord, praise Him...Honor Him…Revere Him…” (Vss. 3, 23 - Selected) Perhaps the ultimate test of our walk with God is how we respond to Him when the bottom falls out. A close friend whose wife has suffered for decades with a painful illness, is now facing the agonizing reality of an adult child with cancer. There has not been one word of doubt or complaint uttered from their lips. Rather, these veterans of suffering portray poise, praise, and a deep sense of rest in God. Clearly, they have learned through the tough school of life to trust and believe in God’s goodness, sovereignty and promises. · Choose not to seek other “gods” as a substitute for what only the living God can provide: “Do not stay so far from me, for trouble is near, and no one else can help me.” (Vs. 11 - NLT) In today’s supermarket of ready made solutions, we seem to run first to every thing and every one except God. There is nothing wrong with seeking out help, but should not our first and natural response be to fall on our face before God? To hide ourselves away with Him in unrushed times of solitude and prayerful meditation upon His word as we listen for His voice? Or are we seeking man-made “gods” for the quick and often trite answers to life’s perplexities and pain? · Choose to remain steady in your previous commitment to God: “Before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows.” (Vs. 25b) In your pilgrimage, doubtless you have made certain commitments to Him. Remain steady in them. Learn to wait for God to move. On His timetable. Don’t jump around, running helter skelter for easy or quick solutions. Learn to live life daily. Even moment by moment. Accept the fact that much of life is pretty pedestrian, like taking out the garbage, dealing in a godly manner with the traffic. Disciplining and molding testy kids. Graciously handling your back pain and difficult relatives. Godliness is usually tested and developed in the crucible of the little noticed routines of daily life. "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much…When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow.” (Luke 16:10; Ecc. 5:4) Choose to believe that God is sovereign and that ultimately His purposes will prevail: “The poor will eat and be satisfied; they who seek the Lord will praise him--may your hearts live forever! …For dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations. All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him-- those who cannot keep themselves alive. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn--for he has done it.” (Vss. 26, 28-31)
R. Dwight Hill
"Where is your faith?" he asked his disciples in Luke 8:25. (NIV) "Where is your faith?" The question hounded me this morning en route to Makati. It is often during long car journeys to work that God speaks to me ever so softly, but clearly. It occured to me that Jesus' question there in that Gospel was often received from the New International Version as rhetoric rather than an actual personal inquiry because of its simplified form. A rhetorical question is defined in the dictionary as
| question requiring no answer: a question asked for effect that neither expects nor requires an answer. Ex: "What's the point of going on?" |
The implication of "Where is your faith?" as a rhetorical question would be that Jesus saw that these mortal men had no faith at all which I believe was not the case. Jesus was humble and graceful when He spoke, even to his subjects. I think He expected them to truly answer the question in their hearts. God has revealed to me that "Where" is the operative word. Jesus came to pull people's faith away from things that fade away and towards Himself. Luke's manuscript triggers good insight. Where is our faith? In the bodega? In the CR? Hehe, but no...it dawned on me that all humans, even those who don't believe in Jesus Christ, actually operate on faith, it's built into our system. If you were late for work and didn't believe in trusting God's orchestration and grace or His elite angel escorts on your side mirrors, you'd have faith merely in yourself and your ability to drive fast, or faith in the car that brings you there or a shortcut route you know. When we turn on the shower in the morning, we have faith that water will spring forth. Do we see it coming in the pipes? No, but we expect water to be there when we need it. How would one without faith live at all? We'd trust nothing and no one if it is true that there are some of us who have absolutely zero faith. We'd have no reason to live. Yes, even those who don't believe in Him have faith, it just happens to be faith misplaced. Faith is never missing or absent, just misplaced. Faith ought to have its proper place, in a Savior Who never ever fails and His love for every single one of us. What God revealed to me is that all of humanity moves towards something they are believing or hoping for. "Where is your faith?" He asks and looks for it, because He expects us to bring it to Him and when He sees it isn't with Him, He expects us to confess to Him as a dear friend on where we've actually put it. I believe what it truly means is what is our faith placed on? Perhaps he, she, or it, or a situation may never truly satisfy, faith perhaps in a progressing relationship, material wealth, a certain career standing, or even plain self reliance, complete trust in our own independence. Where is our faith? More importantly, where must it be? Another verse that confirmed His talk with me was the same story as told by Matthew, the tax collector who was in the boat. In the King James version it reads: Matthew 8:25-27 (King James Version) 25And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. 26And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.
Here we see that the disciples' faith is mentioned as little, perhaps in amount. They had faith in their Lord, but they did not give Him all of it, it was not faith without limits so to speak, and so we see in the Gospel of Matthew that the disciples' faith wasn't far from where it ought to be, but they had it.
J.B. Phillips has a book called Your God is Too Small. In his book he highlights the reason a lot of people still remain in the dark on God's awesome power, believers and non-believers alike. It is we who actually say that God is only able to do what we believe He can. We make God small, we give Him a very small work-table in our garage. There is a critical need to believe in a God Who can achieve the seemingly impossible in any situation, even in little things, and that He actually wants to. We think He's too high and mighty to care bout little things like our favorite desserts, passion-filled pasttimes, people we're attracted to, or things that rub us the wrong way. A big God cares about the small things, details, even your favorite color. A big God asks if your faith is completely on the payroll coming in 2 weeks or His promise to provide at all times. A big God wonders why you only want to bring that friend who needs to hear more about Him if your favorite speaker is the one attending,that "you" was me. If God is the reason for the ministry, why is your faith on the ministry and its people and not in Him to orchestrate it all?
I remember once somebody told me he/she didn't want to bring friends who didn't believe the same thing because the speaker might say something wrong or be too strong, or the vibe of the churchies attending would turn them off. Years ago na ito. Perfect love and faith casts out fear. Believe in the God that you are sharing about and that is He who touches people, not in the pagka-cool of the service, the awesome music band, or the pagka-patok of the speaker. Through any ministry that is dedicated to Jesus Christ and His teaching seeds are sown and God works wonders, whether they use old school hymns or Hillsong United and Switchfoot. It is God Who works wonders through men. People ought to come to church services expecting to discover more of God in His people and through His Word, the Bible, not for entertainment or to be awed by people basking in personal glory. I remember a message I heard that said glory is not to be kept for yourself...it's for those around you. A mango tree's fruit is not for the tree to eat but for those around it. So if God shines His glory through you, remember that it is to bless those around you and draw more to Him. This is my personal insight and meditation on this of course. I am open to listen to other insights should anyone think otherwise. I believe though that God really kind of simplified it for me. "Julia why is your faith here, here, and here...but not with Me?"
Lord, teach me to focus all of my faith on You and bring me to levels where I never thought I could be before.
11And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: 12And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. 1 Kings 19:11-12
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