Preaching the real gospel of the word...

One day I wondered why great poverty and stagnation was coming upon my life. My son called me and told me he too was having dire distress come upon his life. I’m not a real believer that the word of God brings distress but well-being, butter and milk. When Moses was to go into the Promised Land God promised him a land of milk and honey.
Now why is so dire distress coming upon the world when the word of God is so abundant? It so it seems, but it’s not. There are many abundant preachers preaching the word. Or are they? They preach Christ crucified and that we are sinners and need a Savior.
Well that sounds good, but the Lord has led me to believe that something is lacking in all of that. I was beginning to get on the bandwagon of tithing to support the gospel and ‘preach the gospel’. But something was just not right. Jesus prophesied that many would come in his name saying, ‘I’m he’ and ‘the time draws near’.
It sounds all so good and innocent and seems like the right thing to do, to preach that the time draws near for our Lord to come back. But as we have often said before, the poverty does not lay in words but in example. Jesus told his disciples, ‘All authority has been given to me on heaven and earth, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit, teaching them to OBSERVE all that I have commanded you…
The key word here is that we are to observe the words of God and not make career of telling everyone about it and failing to be the faithful wives, or the faithful employees or the good citizens of our towns and cities. This idea that the commission of the church is to ‘preach the gospel’ is not biblical.
God’s people are to observe everything God tells us in his word and tell others to believe God and his word. This idea of making a church with a mega-dollar building is not what does the Lord wants. If you want courage, have picked up a little piece of paper thrown on the floor and put it in the trash in front of everyone with a bible in your hand?
Or being the content faithful employee or wife or husband who really takes care of their business in clearly exemplary manner. Those are the things that bring glory to God name, a religion with results. The word respect real respect and the world respects real results. Everyone knows something about the bible but not everyone has seen the results of real testimony believer in action.
This is the way in which the Devil has gotten ahead of us and like Paul said, we are not ignorant of his device to bring us to poverty in the business of doing God’s will and then truly preaching the ‘real gospel’. May you be blessed? Amen

The Four Commandments of God's Wisdom...

When we think about the kind blessedness of God we can’t but marvel at his wisdom. The ten commandments of God are monument to his wisdom and glory. When we look at the first four we focus on him and our to-do with him.
In the first, there shall be no other gods besides me, God focuses on what Jesus said to the Pharisees …”this people draw in to give praise with their lips but their hearts are far away from me, in vain they worship me teaching as
Doctrine the commandments of men.” This passage opens a window to explore that we are to worship God by what he says in his word and not what we make up, no matter how good, holy, or righteous it sounds.
The devil takes advantage of us in this area, since Paul states that the Devil transforms himself into an angel of light and his ministers in ‘good looking’ ministers of righteousness.
Some time people claim to have visions and dreams claiming that God has spoken to them in such vision and or dreams. Sometime you come along with the ‘feel good’ experience and forget totally about what God want to tell you that day.
In the second window we have the second commandment and that is you shall not have any graven image and worship it. This is a hard one for many, because some religion and thought syndromes teach to love and even idolize some.
This happens in the family and it’s the blue print for trouble. Some husbands love their wives or vice versa in way that is sinful, more than God. And it seem innocent enough to do that, love your children like there’s no tomorrow.
Love is not a sin, but who should we focus on, to be our very breath- has to be clearly God. In the catholic religion, the marriage is idolized along with the rest of their doctrines, but this blog or subject is not about them but us when we give
account. The soberness of the commandment delivers us from a lot of grief. This not about giving up on a marriage, but to be clearly understood who is the general manager of the universe, like we’ve read somewhere, God only.
Then we come to the third commandment which is to not take the Lord’s name in vain. But this is rampant in today religious circles that take the name and call themselves ‘Christian’ and live totally contrary to what their supposed Lord
Jesus teaches. The Devil tempts us constantly to accept behavior contrary to the walk of real Christian who is sincere in his devotion to the word of God. This mysterious religion or group of individuals have existed since the cradle of
Creation. Ever since the Babylonians came to be, they created a religion based on ritual and empty self styled worship, where the self is what is worshiped and it is very popular because everyone does have a self that craves adoration.
I have that problem myself and I have never met anyone who didn’t want to love himself a little more than others. But the Christian real religion calls for sacrifice and that’s not what the self want to do. It’s about me and my need, want and my
Desires, my fulfillment, my dreams. We don’t care for what old God cares about, to put it plainly. But then it’s about the show, to appear holy and righteous with the minimum expense to the ego. If we give we want something or better in
Return. But cultured ego does not want to become unseemly and we want to be holy, but we want to control the situation. Let’s put on our rules, our pastor our agenda and our terms, but totally empty of the holiness and righteous of God.
The last and fourth commandment is probably the most misunderstood and broken commandment of the four, if that is possible. The fourth commandment goes against the grain of everything.
Contrary to popular opinion it is not about which day you worship God, whether Saturday of Sunday, but about the understanding that it is God who has fore-known you and called you and sanctified you.
This fourth or last commandment for this segment is the very soul of the concept and the phenomenon of God grace for us. It has repercussions in our thought because, our church cannot make us holy, and tithing cannot make us holy, giving
Offerings cannot make us holy; the Pastor at church cannot wave a wand over you and make you holy. The fact is that it only the grace of God that has made us holy and we are sealed. We can never fall from our salvation because it is God who
Preserves it. The Sabbath is just a sign or a toke or amulet to remind us that God has done all the work of saving us through Jesus and we don’t have to fear anyone or anything pertaining to our salvation.
This helmet of our salvation is key target for the devil trying to persuade us to think that we have to do something to be holy or please God. But God has already done all the preparation and cooking of salvation for us feast on. May you be blessed. Amen.

A blessing that came one day...

Let me tell you something that happen to me. For a while, I haven’t been feeling well. I’ve been praying and hoping to recover from that, this illness. I talked to my friend on the internet about it and she suggested that I fast to change things. I did
Then I visited the mountains to remind me of the majesty of God and help me recover. But I’m feeling better after I’ve talked with some of my friends from church.
Peace came upon me and well-being. I’m so thankful. Today it was a different night. Something was accomplished. I didn’t feel I had to lament and agonize way into the night.
I’m reminded that my mother has her own husband and doesn’t need my care every living moment. It was a relief. I love my mother but there a dimension you have to keep tabs on.
We are to help people but we can’t be their everything, for them all the time. I feel so much better. I gather that going outside the group and talking so someone outside can get us to focus out of our self and our own little group which can
Grind us down if we are not careful. We have to remember comes from God and only he can truly deliver us from our snared world. It’s a peculiar thing that we don’t put God first on everything, even those cares that seem righteous.
I just want to thank God for all his solace and direction to my life. Remember the important thing is to have all majestic God always in front of your life and agenda. May this blog help you live a more happy and tranquil life. Do not waste your
energy on things and pursuits that seem righteous but you fail to put God first in your worship and address. It makes all the difference to understand this thing of putting God first, and then we can help others from there. May this blog
enrich and help you to a better walk with God. May you be blessed? Amen

A Chunk of the Word to Reflect...

I was talking to one of my friends that would not just believe me. We’ve become friends but we don’t have good communion on issues. The gospel picks up all kind of fish that come into our net. But we pray that they are indeed good fish preserved for eternity.
Then we talk to another friend that does believe, she has lot problems with her husband, who is passive and angry. Just doesn’t value her as a child of God, in my estimation. Jesus said a prophet has honor in all places, but in her own house, in his own family.
I’m sorry. That is what I perceived is happening in her own house. May she be helped and blessed. Then we have Jesus breaking and blessing the five loaves and the two fish. We can trust the Lord to always provide for us emotionally, physically and spiritually. As we too give
Thanks and break what we have and share with others. Lastly we have Jesus walking on the water. We can trust God to be on our boat when the storms of life arise. We fear and we tremble but we should always remember that God loves us and will care for us and our troubles.

The little life that we have...that God loves...

One of the most tell-able things that are happening to me these days is the observation of the parable of the talents. Sometimes we are snared away and can’t do anything worthy of praise. But what do you do when all doors are closed. How good are you as steward of Gods’ time?
How we do you manage Gods’ time, when all you can do is stare at the wall or a coffee machine. Do we fall asleep, wander off, or wonder what to do in the mean time. I always wanted to have all the successes and glories and occupations and jobs…
But the most difficult time for me has been to bring glory to Gods’ name when there nothing I like to do. There’s always something to do, but there are some things that we just put off or don’t want to do.
There’s great reward as a steward of the blessings of God’s time. Some things may be menial and others you have to wait on people and other are just plain exasperating. But God has not disappeared from the scene. He is still watching and testing what will you do when there nothing you can do.
Now how does this preach the Gospel? Well we must understand that God is sovereign at all times. Watching over your elderly mother can be just as faithful to God as any other endeavor you might think is grand.
So there great reward in taking care of errands and the little mundane things. God is not impressed with big thing anyways. He is impressed with those that acknowledge him in this life. He will acknowledge you in heaven in front of his holy angels.
I hope this give you comfort in taking care of the little things when you find yourself discouraged and wondering if God really cares about you and what you do for him in this life. May you be blessed. Amen

Three things to not forget and worship God...

In the first setting we have the ten lepers that were healed and only one came back to thank Jesus, out loud, and he was a Samaritan. So we should always thank God for all his kind blessings and attentions. We get carried away with ‘self projects’ and self ambitions that never satisfy us.
The second setting is about Peter and whether he loves God. Jesus asks Peter three times repeatedly whether he indeed loves his Lord. And reaffirms that he loves Jesus. How about us? Do we have a heavy heart that we don’t want to serve God anymore?
It happened to me that I was more focused on myself and on my goals. I must confess, I became weary and didn’t want to continue anymore. But how much do we really want to serve God and the cause of Christ? Do we rejoice in the knowledge of him?
In the third and final setting, we have Paul in Malta, shipwrecked and in need. Do we really trust God and have faith in Christ to take care of us? Paul healed the sick in Malta and their afflicted. We become half hearted with our devotion.
So we have three things: Thanksgiving, service and faith. In all of these three things we can become lax and fall away if we are not careful. May you be blessed and may God have everlasting dominion and glory. Amen.