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Guilty of this too. I think we should continuously remind ourselves that the resources given to us has a higher purpose than self-gratification.
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Love the unworthy so they will eventually strive to become worthy (Luke 6:27-36)
And when we do love them, our heart is changed in the process as well. It expands and we become more capable to love, much like how God loved us. (Romans 5:8)
May our worship doesn’t end after the service or mass every Sunday. Worship essentially should be seen in our everyday life, in how we honor God in our decisions and actions everyday.
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.
(James 1:22-26NIV)
4 “Show me, Lord, my life’s end
and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting my life is.
5 You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
the span of my years is as nothing before you.
Everyone is but a breath,
even those who seem secure.
6 “Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom;
in vain they rush about, heaping up wealth
without knowing whose it will finally be.
7 “But now, Lord, what do I look for?
My hope is in you.
(Psalm 39:4-7 NIV)
Got rebuked by this verse for fussing about trivial things. I should be focusing on what He has called us for, seek it all the time, and everything else follows (Seek first His righteousness and all these shall be added unto you. – Matthew 6:33). Our life is fleeting and it is but a breath to God. He can take it anytime He wants to. Let’s strive to be faithful stewards of the call He has for our lives. Focus on the Main Goal.
When the Bible says, “Your Word is a lamp to my feet,” the indication is that God is only going to show us the next step. While it is hard not to think about the past and future, God illuminates for us what we need today (our daily bread). And that’s the only place where we can actually DO anything anyway. – Michael Thompson (http://cslewiswisdom.blogspot.com/2012/01/living-in-present.html)
“The Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most temporal part of time–for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
The PRESENT is the only real thing we have. This is the only time we can really make a difference. Not in the future for we do not know for sure what lies there. If you can make it right, make it right NOW, do what you can do now and be present to the people you are with. Worries about the future and regrets about the past will just rob us of the joy we can have in the present.
Embracing Stress now. I love the fact about how stress bring courage, resiliency and most especially about the stress hormone Oxytocin and how it enables human connection. God is so wise that he wired us in that way. And I love how Kelly advised on decision making. It should not be based on avoiding discomfort but more on chasing meaning even if there’s discomfort.
Excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I’ve been to the mountain top”
Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus, and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters of life. At points he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew and throw him off base…. Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn’t stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But he got down with him, administered first aid, and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, this was the great man, because he had the capacity to project the “I” into the “thou,” and to be concerned about his brother. Now you know, we use our imagination a great deal to try to determine why the priest and the Levite didn’t stop. At times we say they were busy going to a church meeting, an ecclesiastical gathering, and they had to get on down to Jerusalem so they wouldn’t be late for their meeting. At other times we would speculate that there was a religious law that “One who was engaged in religious ceremonials was not to touch a human body twenty-four hours before the ceremony.” And every now and then we begin to wonder whether maybe they were not going down to Jerusalem — or down to Jericho, rather to organize a “Jericho Road Improvement Association.” That’s a possibility. Maybe they felt that it was better to deal with the problem from the causal root, rather than to get bogged down with an individual effect. But I’m going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It’s possible that those men were afraid. You see, the Jericho road is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, “I can see why Jesus used this as the setting for his parable.” It’s a winding, meandering road. It’s really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles — or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you’re about 2200 feet below sea level. That’s a dangerous road. In the days of Jesus it came to be known as the “Bloody Pass.” And you know, it’s possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it’s possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the priest asked — the first question that the Levite asked was, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?” That’s the question before you tonight. Not, “If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to my job. Not, “If I stop to help the sanitation workers what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?” The question is not, “If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?” The question is, “If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?” That’s the question.
Good Excerpt from the book Taking your soul to work:
From Paul Stevens: ” I discovered that most jobs are open only to candidates with years of relevant experience. That approach is wrong. Dee Hock, President of Visa international argues that we should “hire and promote first on the basis of integrity, second, motivation; third, capacity, fourth, understanding; fifth knowledge; and last and the least experience.” He says that “without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to use by people with the other qualities.”
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. -Matt 6:34
The morrow shall take thought – The morrow will have anxieties and cares of its own, but it will also bring the proper provision for those cares. Though you will have needs, yet God will provide for them as they occur. Do not, therefore, increase the cares of today by borrowing trouble from the future. Do your duty faithfully now, and depend upon the mercy of God and his divine help for the troubles which are yet to come.
http://barnes.biblecommenter.com/matthew/6.htm
http://bible.cc/matthew/6-34.htm
I pray everyone especially those dear to me will open their eyes that salvation or justification cannot be achieved by good works but by FAITH ALONE. Not a combination of both, but Faith alone in Christ that he has done the work for us and that good works are the fruit of being born again in Christ. We cannot save ourselves. Only Christ can, and He already did by dying on Cross for our sins! We just have to believe in Him. This liberating knowledge is so life changing in me that I pray everyone will experience the freedom and joy of this knowledge.
Paul affirms that the justification comes to us as a gift not as form of a wage were we must earn it. (Romans 4:1-5)
Some may argue that if you are justified by faith alone, will it not give you reason to sin because you are saved anyway if you just believe. Certainly not as Paul says Romans 6. We don’t sin anymore after because we’ve been freed from the slavery of sin thru Christ. we are now a new Creation. And by being in Christ, we are created for Good works and that we should now walk in them (Ephesians 2:8-10).
Christian,
cholccaldito 