Forwarded Messages

We are connected to our iPhones, iPads, iTouch, iTunes, iMac, iChat, but have we lost the connection to the I AM?

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone.  Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind.  (James 1:5-6 NLT) Father, give me wisdom as I begin this new day.  Help me to use my time,the time You have allotted me, wisely, not wastefully. Father, give me wisdom as I write these words. Please put words into my mind and allow them to flow into thoughts that are good news to the poor, that announce pardon to the imprisoned, recovery of sight to the blind, words that set the burdened and battered free, and words that announce, "This is God’s year to act!" (Luke 4:18-19 MSG). Father, give me wisdom so that when I speak I will say things that are pure and clean and words that help and give life to those who listen. Father, give me wisdom to lead my fami...

"Choose this day..." Joshua, the leader of God's people, was addressing his countrymen. They had conquered the land that God had promised to give them and were ready to settle in their new homes. Now Joshua calls on them to make a choice. "Choose this day whom you will serve..." This was about loyalty. This was about allegiance. Joshua spoke to them about getting rid of the idols that their parents had served and dedicating themselves to the Lord. If that seemed unacceptable, they needed to choose who they would serve: the old idols or possibly the new idols they had found in the land where they were living. "Choose this day whom you will serve... But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD " (Joshua 24:15). Joshua had already made his choice. He and his family would serve God. To a man, Joshua's people cried out that they wanted to do the same, that they wanted to serve God. Surely that made Joshua happy, right? He had given such a persua...

Constriction happens when we feel like our options are reduced to one or two bad possibilities. It's either "this" or "that," and "this" is horrible while "that" is disastrous. Here’s how to avoid making a hasty decision in panic, and prevent them from doing something rash. The first strategy is  D ELAY . Keep from making a rash move by waiting. As a Christian, waiting is not inaction; it is waiting on the Lord (Isaiah 40:28-31). It is time for prayer and for seeking God's will in Scripture. Often we cannot see the real situation and all the other possible options because we’re so caught up in the miseries of the moment. So often in the haste of the moment, we don't have all the facts or have misperceived the situation. A prayerful delay for a short time allows us to refocus and opens our heart so God can show us another way.

It used to be the case that a job is something that workers exchange their labor in return for money that’ll put food into their mouth. In the present time though, more and more people are looking beyond the fulfillment of their financial needs to satisfy other important aspects of their lives, such as health, friendship and achievement. The truth is that while some of the workers can achieve their important needs while doing the work, some may rather failed miserably in pursuing their ideal life. In this case, the best solution is to consider quitting the current job that only feeds you with food and sadness. There will be several things to consider before you make this hard decision:  First Of All: Why Should You Quit?  

Many of us are broken at one time or another. We are sometimes broken in spirit, sometimes broken in body, sometimes broken in relationships and sometimes broken by the death of a loved one or even the loss of a job. We often struggle to find a reason for this happening, but we just as often struggle for a reason to go on, to have some purpose in our lives. We want to cry out, "What's the use? Why should I even try? No one cares, no one sees me." It may be that you are hurting, lonely, feeling rejected, useless or abandoned... broken. I understand how hard that is to deal with in your life, but remember that God always has a use for you and always has love for you, even when you feel unlovable and unloved. I recently found a quote from "Heart Held High," that reminds us of some amazing things about God. The author wrote:

Is your computer safe? Do you know who might be lurking in your files, swiping your private information, accessing your financial records? Is someone stealing from you? Studies say that one out of every twenty Americans has suffered some sort of identity theft. Smartphone users were one third likelier to be targeted by thieves. There are approximately 378 million victims per year, or more than 1 million each day and 12 per second. Have I made you paranoid yet? In Jesus' day, identity theft wasn't a problem. Computer hackers didn't steal information. No one worried about cyber crime. Yet Jesus issued a security warning. He said, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal" (Matthew 6:19). Even then, almost two thousand years ago, people had to worry about having their treasure stolen. Jesus had a solution as to how to prevent that: "But store up for yourselves trea...

I think sometimes that I don't understand anything about prayer. I pray a lot, mind you. It's just that I don't understand a great deal about it. I sometimes pray for good things, and they don't come. At other times, I pray for myself or others to be spared bad things, yet they still happen. How does prayer work? How do I know what to pray for? Do questions such as these ever bother you? Maybe at least part of our problem is in praying for wrong things. If that is the case, then I can certainly begin to see how praying could be confusing. When we are wrong-headed in what we ask, we can hardly blame God for failing to answer. Let me try to make sense of what I am struggling to say. Back in the earliest days of the church, Peter and John were called before the religious authorities of Jerusalem. They were ordered to stop preaching about Jesus in the city. They were, in fact, threatened that bad things would come down on them if they didn't stop. Duly wa...

Forgiveness is setting the imprisoned bird free, then realizing that you were the imprisoned bird.  "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD"  (Leviticus 19:18). "Your hatred of her is unjustified," the teacher said as a man ranted about his ex-wife. "What do you mean unjustified?" he spit out. "You have no idea how she treated me, the things she's said to me, or the #$#@$@# things she continues to do. It's my God-given right to hate her." I'm taking a class for couples who are divorcing or are recently divorced that have too much conflict. Actually, let me restate that: the judge ordered that we take it. It's like a finishing school of sorts for something that is, well, finished, or at least theoretically should be. The class is divided into 2 sessions: one partner comes to the earlier class and the other comes to the later one. M...

Commencement Speech Given in the Ateneo de Manila University for the Graduates of 2015 You cannot imagine how great an honor it is for me to speak before you today. And that is certainly not a cliché or an exaggeration. Few people would ever guess that despite the many blessings I’ve received in over 30 years as a ballerina, most of my young life was spent pining for something that you all have and I don’t—a diploma from the Ateneo de Manila University. You see, I come from a certified Blue Eagle family. My father, his brother and my siblings all graduated from the Ateneo, with all four men in my family in the Honors Class since their elementary grades. Although I married a magna cum laude from Harvard. (Sorry, my husband made sure that I stuck that in there somewhere.) When I was seventeen, fresh out of high school, I found myself standing at a crossroad in my life: I was accepted in both the Ateneo and UP for college. But I decided to go to Russia instead and pur...

She was nobody. A nameless woman in a sea of people.  A woman with a secret: she had a gynecological problem that caused her to bleed continually. Under Jewish law, anyone that touched her would be ceremonially unclean. So she hid in the crowd, seeking anonymity and isolation. Jesus was with Jairus, an important man in the community, a ruler of the synagogue. They were on an urgent mission to save Jairus' daughter, who was gravely ill. The woman wanted to be healed as well. She had heard of Jesus and the miracles he had done. She knew that no holy man would touch her on purpose... they wouldn't want to defile themselves in that way. She would have to find a way to be healed in secret. The gospel of Mark tells the story: When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from ...

Re-posting from happy Can-D

 TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.