No Regrets!

I had learned about John Knox and was struck with the statement "He died without regrets." Indeed, he had lived his life to the fullest for he had done his best while he was here on earth. By this I was able to asked myself if I would be telling that to myself on my deathbed.

From the time that I had personally encountered my Savior, my heart was already fully surrendered to Him because I had found my worth and purpose in Him, in serving Him. To have no regrets for me is to always be stick with this commitment of mine to my Lord. To spend every bit of my life for Him will leave no rooms for regrets in my heart.

My great fear is to stray away from my service to God and I am really feeling this fear now that the graduation is already fast approaching. Family pressure is really true. To hear from my father that he is counting on me in leading my younger siblings to success is stirring my great fear. I have known many believers who have gave in to this pressure and I do not want this to happen to me. 

I am always praying to God that He would always increase my faith in Him so that I won't give in to the worries of this world. I am doubtless that God will take care of my family whenever I would always choose to follow Him in my life. I am very much confident that He will provide everything and most importantly, He will take good care of them spiritually. These have been promised by God, I just need to fully trust Him at all times and be courageous enough to stand for Him, So that I can peacefully and joyfully say in the future that I will die with no regrets.

Give Me Wisdom, Father!

I had learned about Zwingli and his decision of compromising his belief  in order to not lose the help of the political powers were giving to him. By this I have affirmed how we should think and pray thoroughly about our decision knowing that  it will affect our lives and the people that surrounds us or even those that will come after us.

These past few days, I have told myself for how many times that it is hard to be a graduating student because I have to make necessary decisions that will affect my future. God has been unfolding things to me from His word about wisdom. And I am very much grateful to Him for guiding me.

" Only simpletons believe everything they're told! The prudent carefully consider their steps"
( Prov. 14: 15).

" Simpletons are clothed with foolishness, but the prudent are crowned with knowledge"
(Prov. 14: 18).

"Fear of the Lord teaches wisdom; humility precedes honor" (Prov.15: 33).

Each of us really needs God's wisdom in order for us to please Him with each of our decisions. One thing that I really praise Him for is that when I asked for help He would really send help for me. He has given me a trusted person whom I would say is living with Him day by day and had been a recipient of His wisdom. This person has been a great help for me during joyful times and hardships. I consider her as one of God's wonderful blessing to me.

I hope that God would always give me the conviction to please Him with every decisions that I will make so that I would always crave and ask for His wisdom.

When Logic Hinders Faith

In our lesson, we had mentioned about the rational people who cannot believe in doctrines that do not make any logical sense. I was into deep thinking about this and on the process I had connected it with the book that I have read about faith and it states there that our generation right now is not into praying for impossible things to be done by God because of our minds that cannot process the ways or hows will it be accomplished. That is why I had learned that indeed our tend to rationalize everything can be a hindrance on exercising our faith in God. By it we no longer pray and attempt great things for God because we are stocked with the our thought that, "It is impossible!" or "That does not make sense!" 

I am personally guilty about this but I thank God for the grace that He had given for He had rebuked from having an unbelieving heart. There were times before that I had thought about the broken relationship of my parents as a very impossible thing to be fix by God. I have questioned Him, if I would still continue to pray for their reconciliation. But God had rebuked me. He had let me realized that it is His will that my parents' marriage would be fixed because He had designed marriage for two persons whole lifetime. And He had reminded me that nothing is impossible for Him because He is the God who is all-powerful. The God who had led the virgin Mary to be pregnant and bore Christ!

All of the people especially us, believers, should put our full faith in Him. Especially during the times that that we can utter, "It does not make sense!". Because during these kind of situations will God be more willing to accomplished because in these situations we can only depend on His strength and power that will great glorification to His name.

Overwhelming Love!

I learned about the Puritans this week and was interested with their first core belief about grace. According to them, it is a miracle that God grants some people the ability to truly love. And indeed I was reminded that it is only by the great love of God that every people can render a genuine love to the people around them.

One of my realizations here in BTC is that it is indeed hard to love other people without any sense of selfish motives from deep within me. And what's more is that Christ had told us to love those that we do not like and those that who doesn't like us. And I am aware that with my own strength I am really sure that I cannot do this. One thing that really kept me thinking about this issue is that as a minister of Christ I should love the people whom I am ministering to in order to be able to minister to them effectively. I admit that many times before I have realized this I was not really focus on people while I am having weekend ministry. Instead I was more focus on the idea of doing the responsibilities that I have. Because of these convictions I was really into praying for a heart full of love for these people and God had opened my eyes that it is only through His love that I can also love other people truly. And I also realized that this is indeed possible because God's love for me is very much overwhelming that it cannot be contained. That is why when people are fully satisfied with the love of God for them then the overflowing of God's love from their heart to other people is very much expected to happen. Every man has his own cravings and longings for love and the love that we are looking for is unconditional love. A love that would accept us wholly and joyfully even with the failures and imperfections that we have. And guess what no one can satisfy this longing of us but our Christ alone. He is the only one who is able to love us. But what is amazing is that He has grant us, believers, to be a vessels of His love to other people who are craving for it. And it is a challenge for me or us to always satisfy and soak ourselves with His love in order for the people that surround us to be blessed by us and will glorify our God who is loving us always and forever.

Accept! Hope!

I've learned more about the life of Martin Luther and found out that He was not really into having revolution from the church instead he just wanted reformation. By this I have been affirmed that all people will not really understand the intentions of other people's hearts. Even if they do not know anything that is factually true about these intentions they have this big tendency to be quick in judging and accusing.

I always have this fear of being misunderstood or being judged by other people and I have this feeling within me that I really want to defend myself from all those accusing words, actions, and eyes. I can't explain the feeling that is deep within me in experiencing this injustice. I cannot fully understand how people is quick to judge without considering the hurt that it will cause to other people's feelings. But in the midst of these questions I have come to realize that this is really a result of our human sinfulness. Even I have committed and is still prone to commit this kind of unwise thinking and action.

In order to not get myself so exhausted with this kind of situation I will choose to understand and accept the reality of the world. Of course, I won't stop there I have learned that there is no hopeless case to Jesus and He is always able to change the hearts of the people. So I will try to always remember to pray for myself and for other people in changing our hearts and avoid having a judgmental attitude.

Attitude of the heart

I've learned the life of Henry VIII this week. He had six wives due to the desire of having a male heir. From his life before I have realized that most of the people now are just like him. We have this one great desire and we will do anything just to have it even if it means using and hurting other people.

I am also guilty of having this desire to gratify my own self by accomplishing what I want. Remembering when I was in my high school days that I usually urged my mother to give me what I am asking for and if she won't grant it I had this manipulation technique that I rebelled silently. It means having the so called "cold war", I didn't talk to her neither listened to her during those times that I declare that war. I did that because I know she would give me what I want in order to make me happy. I know that it was not right and I am shameful to have done that before. Unwise actions would really happen if I will push through in acquiring my selfish desires and it will cause other people to be hurt. I should always put in my mind that not all that I want I will have especially those that are selfishly desired by me.

This also might happened in the condition of my heart on how I lift up my petitions to God and I know this attitude is not pleasing to Him because He wants my desires to be always aligned to His desires and not just to my selfishness. I will always ask God to search my heart and help me evaluate the desires of my heart hoping that I can glorify Him with these desires.

To Him be the Glory!

I had learned about Ambrose of Milan this week and was amazed by one of the greatest accomplishments of his ministry. God had used him to touched and influenced one of the greatest contributor of the development of our church. Through this I've learned and affirmed that when we serve God and speak His word it will never be in vain because the Holy Spirit will really work in the people that we are ministering to through the efforts that we make.

Many times I heard stories from the ministers being frustrated and exhausted because they have been toiling and yet not even seeing the fruit of their labors. Even if I am just a weekender in the church that I am serving for almost four years I also had experienced and thought about this. It is really disappointing when you've given the best in you and it seemed like there is no reaction of growth from the people that you expect to grow. I remember how God carry me through that frustration and taught me to fully depend in His power. Yes! Many times I toiled with my own strength for the ministry and forgot to lift it up to Him and be fully dependent in Him about its results. He had taught me to pray and ask Him for the people in my ministry to grow in Him. By this the glory will not be recorded to me but to Him who is very much deserving to receive it.

I will always ask God to help me, I will with His help, love the people whom He loves so that I can genuinely pray and minister to them.