Sad? “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” (John 14 1-4)
Don’t feel loved? For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)Does God feel far from you? You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.You discern my going out and my lying down;you are familiar with all my ways. (Psalm 139:1-3)
Your faith needs encouragement? Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.
(Hebrews 11:1-2)Worried? Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:34)
Hurt? And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. (Colossians 3:14-15)
Seeking Peace? Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (John 14:27)
Losing hope? May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word. ( 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17)
Don’t understand? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. (Isaiah 58:8-9)
Scared? Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. (Psalm 23:4)
Trials
I want to be able to rebuke Satan through the power of Jesus’ name. I know that I can because God’s name and being is more powerful that Satan will ever be. However, because of my doubts and lack of faith at times, I feel as if my words might become hollow and ineffective. Right now I’m struggling with fear as I have before, and worries concerning other things, unnamed, and I’m just finding it hard to run to Jesus. I wish that I could reactively run to Him without fear and with complete trust and love, but I just can’t. I’m to human. I’m too sinful. Right now I am just being reminded how deceitful the heart really is. I pray that God would change my heart so that it will not be hardened towards Him or His Word. It’s tough, battling Satan and your own sin. It is hard focusing on Jesus. I wish that it weren’t. I don’t understand why I have to struggle with this. If only it were something else. I want to be able to be transformed by Christ so that I will love Him with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength and that I may glorify Him. I want to be able to witness to others and uplift them so that they may have knowledge of Christ and a relationship with Him. There are still so many aspects of Christianity that I need to understand. I pray that I will have heart knowledge in contrast with head knowledge of the gospel, so that I can be effective and proactive, living as a member of the Body that serves God instinctively.
Please pray for me that God will continue to reveal Himself to me, that the Holy Spirit will bring me comfort and joy in Christ, and that I will no longer have the fears that I do.
Be strong against Satan. Jesus will crush him underneath His feet. HAH.
If anyone views my blog and is a believer in Christ, please pray for me right now. For unspoken prayer.
The Gentle Giant. (Aldabra Tortoise)
I wish that it didn’t seem like God took so long to respond to prayer. Sometimes it does take a long time. But I really wish He spoke quickly.
“by His wounds, we are healed”
(Source: quesera-whatwillbewillbe)
We enter a little coffeehouse with a friend of mine and give our order. While we’re aproaching our table two people come in and they go to the counter:
‘Five coffees, please. Two of them for us and three suspended’ They pay for their order, take the two and leave.
I ask my friend: “What are those ‘suspended’ coffees?”
My friend: “Wait for it and you will see.”
Some more people enter. Two girls ask for one coffee each, pay and go. The next order was for seven coffees and it was made by three lawyers - three for them and four ‘suspended’. While I still wonder what’s the deal with those ‘suspended’ coffees I enjoy the sunny weather and the beautiful view towards the square infront of the café. Suddenly a man dressed in shabby clothes who looks like a beggar comes in throught the door and kindly asks
‘Do you have a suspended coffee ?’
It’s simple - people pay in advance for a coffee meant for someone who can not afford a warm bevarage. The tradition with the suspended coffees started in Naples, but it has spread all over the world and in some places you can order not only a suspended coffee, but also a sandwitch or a whole meal.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have such cafés or even grocery stores in every town where the less fortunate will find hope and support ? If you own a business why don’t you offer it to your clients… I am sure many of them will like it.
(Source: wenchymcwench)
Anyone attend a secret church ‘13?
Thoughts
I’m thinking about the different career choices I would like to pursue once/if I have the Social Work degree by my junior year of college. Are there social worker’s who practice therapy for mental health disorders such as eating disorders in which there is counseling and the teaching of nutrition? Helping them overcome their mindset and teaching how to eat right and still feel good about yourself? And helping them through deeper struggles of an eating disorder. As you can tell, I’m not fully knowledgeable about eating disorders, the different types, and how to help someone in that situation. But if there are any social workers out there, you should talk to me :) and tell me what you do! Or people in behavioral healthcare :)
Our pastor used to pull out a blank sheet of paper and tell us that we were born like it: clean, innocent, and blameless. However, he’ll start crumpling, tearing and stepping on the sheet as he enumerated the sins we learn to do as we grow up. He’ll recite a long list of sins until the blank sheet of paper is beyond recognition; until it was worthy of the trash can.
It was on January 30th that I decided to turn my Informative speech for my speech communications class into a testimony— the story of how I realized my worth in Jesus Christ. Hands numb and shaking, I tried to articulate what Jesus has done for me and how He changed how I saw myself.
As I was near the end of my speech, I noticed my revised speech plan lying on the table near me. It was a split-second’s decision; though my time was running out, I would do to my speech plan what my pastor did with that blank sheet of paper. I believe that it was the Father who made me do that, because more than making me speak in front of my classmates, He was also teaching me something.
I held up my speech plan to my classmates. “Look at this,” I said. “It’s my speech plan. I worked hard for it. Thought hard for it. Carefully prepared and revised it.” That was when the revelation struck.
Aren’t our lives just like my speech plan? It’s not true that we stay as blank sheets of paper as we grow up. We strive to be something. We struggle to reach our dreams, to prove ourselves. and to draw other people’s attention and approval. We risk, we gamble, and we sacrifice many things in our lives to achieve perfection and beauty. Just like what I tried to do with that speech plan, we all do our best to be the best, to get what we want, to be somebody that we want. We become more than blank sheets of paper. We fill our lives up, we want to become so much more.
There comes a time that we mess up though. We fail that exam, we fail to make it to that university, or we fail to land that job. Our families and relationships suffer problems. We run out of money, we run out of hope, we run out of fervor and passion. We do things we shouldn’t.
All of a sudden, that paper we’d been working so hard to perfect receives a blotch. Then another blotch. The letters fade, and all our efforts seem wasted. It will all come to a point when what we worked hard for such a long time will all come up to nothing because of an unexpected and sudden turn of events.
Yes, all of us have gone through these things. We know how it feels like.
We have nothing else to present to other people. We feel like we have nothing more to offer; we’ve given it all, but it was in vain.
Here’s the good news, though: Jesus came to pick us up and exchange speech plans with us: His for ours. If our individual speech plans would have to be evaluated, our professor, God, wouldn’t have wanted to look at them. They were unacceptable! Jesus Christ’s, however, was clean, organized, beautiful, artistic and excellent; worthy of the Professor’s perfect score and highest remark. This speech plan— this life— is exactly what Jesus Christ gave us so that we can come freely to the Father’s throne. This is grace.
I raised up the crumpled and torn speech plan and carefully placed it between the pages of my journal. “This is what happens when you accept Jesus offer to you,” I said. “The two of you become one. Your failures, mistakes and sins become lost in His great big love. All that God sees when He looks at you is what Jesus has done on the cross.”
You can no longer be called failure, freak, ugly, careless, liar, hypocrite or crazy now that Jesus has been added to your life’s equation. One: His life is yours. Two: the two of you have become One. Your Savior’s involvement in your life changes the game. Victory is yours. You can be sure that whatever may the past hold against you, Jesus is greater than. His plans outstands your past. His capabilities are beyond yours. And all you do is trust Him. Trust Him to get you through. Trust Him to finish what He started in your life.
“You can be sure that this unity will never be broken,” I said, shaking the journal where the speech plan was hidden. “Paul said to the Romans that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow— not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below— indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. You can hold on to that. Jesus was serious as He wrote that through Apostle Paul. He won’t let go.”
He covers our lousy speech plans with His own. He covers us with Himself. We are in our safest and most beautiful place in Him.
