From the church I'm attending
Good News Times
Weekly Newsletter of Puno United Methodist Church
Another food for the soul.
"If anyone wills to do His will, He shall know concerning the Doctrine..." (John 7:17)
The golden rule to follow to obtain spiritual understanding is not one of intellectual pursuit, but one of obedience. If a person wants scientific knowledge, then intellectual curiosity must be the guide. but if one desires knowledge and insight to the teachings of Jesus Christ, one can only obtain it through obedience. if spiritual things seem dark and hidden to me, then I can be sure that there is a point of disobedience somewhere in life. Intellectual darkness is the result of ignorance, but spiritual darkness is the result of something that I do not intend to obey.
No one ever receives a word from God without instantly being put to the test regarding it. We disobey and then wonder why we are growing spiritually. Jesus said, "If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift" (Matthew 5:23-24). He is saying, in essence, "Don't say another word to me; first be obedient by making things right." the teachings of Jesus hit us where we live. We cannot stand as impostors before him for even one second. He instructs us down to the very last detail. The Spirit of God uncovers our spirit of self-vindication and makes us sensitive to things that we have never even thought of before.
When Jesus drives something home to you through His Word, don't try to evade it. If you do, you will become a religious impostor. Examine the things you tend simply to shrug your shoulders about, and where you have refused to be obedient, and you will know why you are not growing spiritually. As Jesus said, 'first...go..." even at the risk of being thought of a sfanatical, you must obey what god tells you.
Monday, July 28, 2008
"The Price of the Vision"
From the church I'm attending
Good News Times
Weekly Newsletter of Puno United Methodist Church
Another food for the soul.
"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord..." (Isaiah 6:1)
Our soul's personal hisotry with God is often an account of the death of our heroes. Over and over again God has to remove our friends to put Himself in their place, and that is when we falter, fail, and become discourage. Let me think about this personally - when the person died who represented for me all that God was, did I give up on everything in life? Did I become ill or disheartened? Or did I do as Isaiah did and see the Lord?
My vision of God is dependent upon the condition of my character. My character determines whether or not truth can even be revealed to me. Before I can say, "I saw the Lord." there must be something in my character that conforms to the likeness of God. Until I am born again and really begin to see the kingdom of God, I only see from the perspective of my own biases. What I need is God's surgical procedure - His use of external circumstances to bring about internal purification.
Your priorities must be god first, god second, and god third, until your life is continually face to face with god and no one else is taken itno account whatsoever. Your prayer will then be, "in all the world there in no one but You, dear God; there is no one but You."
Keep paying the price. Let god see that you are willing to live up to the vision.
Good News Times
Weekly Newsletter of Puno United Methodist Church
Another food for the soul.
"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord..." (Isaiah 6:1)
Our soul's personal hisotry with God is often an account of the death of our heroes. Over and over again God has to remove our friends to put Himself in their place, and that is when we falter, fail, and become discourage. Let me think about this personally - when the person died who represented for me all that God was, did I give up on everything in life? Did I become ill or disheartened? Or did I do as Isaiah did and see the Lord?
My vision of God is dependent upon the condition of my character. My character determines whether or not truth can even be revealed to me. Before I can say, "I saw the Lord." there must be something in my character that conforms to the likeness of God. Until I am born again and really begin to see the kingdom of God, I only see from the perspective of my own biases. What I need is God's surgical procedure - His use of external circumstances to bring about internal purification.
Your priorities must be god first, god second, and god third, until your life is continually face to face with god and no one else is taken itno account whatsoever. Your prayer will then be, "in all the world there in no one but You, dear God; there is no one but You."
Keep paying the price. Let god see that you are willing to live up to the vision.
Bible Reading and Reflections
Net Bible First Edition
Psalms 16:1-8
A prayer2 of David.
16:1 Protect me, O God, for I have taken shelter in you.3
16:2 I say to the Lord, “You are the Lord,
my only source of well-being.”4
16:3 As for God’s chosen people who are in the land,
and the leading officials I admired so much5 –
16:4 their troubles multiply,
they desire other gods.6
I will not pour out drink offerings of blood to their gods,7
nor will I make vows in the name of their gods.8
16:5 Lord, you give me stability and prosperity;9
you make my future secure.10
16:6 It is as if I have been given fertile fields
or received a beautiful tract of land.11
16:7 I will praise12 the Lord who13 guides14 me;
yes, during the night I reflect and learn.15
16:8 I constantly trust in the Lord;16
because he is at my right hand, I will not be upended.
My Reflections:
How often did we give praises to God? I think only few. Most of us are preoccupied of our “busy life” or of the things around us that we often neglect and forget to give praises God. Some of us only give praises to God on Sundays and sometimes we’re too lazy to go to church. It really hurts to face the fact that though we’re Christians already laziness is still the number problem in us and that’s what the devil uses to us. Let us be like David praising God in everything that he does.
Psalms 16:1-8
A prayer2 of David.
16:1 Protect me, O God, for I have taken shelter in you.3
16:2 I say to the Lord, “You are the Lord,
my only source of well-being.”4
16:3 As for God’s chosen people who are in the land,
and the leading officials I admired so much5 –
16:4 their troubles multiply,
they desire other gods.6
I will not pour out drink offerings of blood to their gods,7
nor will I make vows in the name of their gods.8
16:5 Lord, you give me stability and prosperity;9
you make my future secure.10
16:6 It is as if I have been given fertile fields
or received a beautiful tract of land.11
16:7 I will praise12 the Lord who13 guides14 me;
yes, during the night I reflect and learn.15
16:8 I constantly trust in the Lord;16
because he is at my right hand, I will not be upended.
My Reflections:
How often did we give praises to God? I think only few. Most of us are preoccupied of our “busy life” or of the things around us that we often neglect and forget to give praises God. Some of us only give praises to God on Sundays and sometimes we’re too lazy to go to church. It really hurts to face the fact that though we’re Christians already laziness is still the number problem in us and that’s what the devil uses to us. Let us be like David praising God in everything that he does.
"Regeneration"
From the church I'm attending
Good News Times
Weekly Newsletter of Puno United Methodist Church
Another food for the soul.
“if your right hand causes to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell” (Matthew 5:30).
Jesus did not say that everyone must cut off his right hand, but that “if your right hand causes you to sin” in your walk with Him, then it is better to “cut if off.” There are many things that are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going to concentrate on God you cannot do them. Your right hand is one of the best things you have, but Jesus says that if it hinders you in following His percept, then “cut it off”. The principle taught here is the strictest discipline or lesson that ever hit humankind.
When God changes you through regeneration, giving you new life through spiritual rebirth, your life initially has the characteristics of being maimed. There are a hundred one things that you dare not do – things that would be sin for you, and would be recognized as sin by those who really know you. But the unspiritual people around you will say, “What’s so wrong with doing that? How absurd you are!” There has never yet been a saint into life maimed but lovely in God’s sight than to appear lovely to man’s eyes but lame to God’s. At first, Jesus Christ through His Spirit has to restrain you from doing a great many things that may be perfectly right for everyone else but not right for you. Yet, see that you don’t use your restrictions to criticize someone else.
The Christian life is a maimed life initially, but in verse 48 Jesus gave us the picture of a perfectly well-rounded life – “You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
Good News Times
Weekly Newsletter of Puno United Methodist Church
Another food for the soul.
“if your right hand causes to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell” (Matthew 5:30).
Jesus did not say that everyone must cut off his right hand, but that “if your right hand causes you to sin” in your walk with Him, then it is better to “cut if off.” There are many things that are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going to concentrate on God you cannot do them. Your right hand is one of the best things you have, but Jesus says that if it hinders you in following His percept, then “cut it off”. The principle taught here is the strictest discipline or lesson that ever hit humankind.
When God changes you through regeneration, giving you new life through spiritual rebirth, your life initially has the characteristics of being maimed. There are a hundred one things that you dare not do – things that would be sin for you, and would be recognized as sin by those who really know you. But the unspiritual people around you will say, “What’s so wrong with doing that? How absurd you are!” There has never yet been a saint into life maimed but lovely in God’s sight than to appear lovely to man’s eyes but lame to God’s. At first, Jesus Christ through His Spirit has to restrain you from doing a great many things that may be perfectly right for everyone else but not right for you. Yet, see that you don’t use your restrictions to criticize someone else.
The Christian life is a maimed life initially, but in verse 48 Jesus gave us the picture of a perfectly well-rounded life – “You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
"Don't Plan Without GOD"
We want to share this article to you (readers) and we hope that this can help you in your spiritual growth.
From the church We're attending
Good News Times
Weekly Newsletter of Puno United Methodist Church
“Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass” (Psalm 37:5)
Don’t plan without God. God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the plans we have made, when we have not taken Him into account. We get ourselves into circumstances that were into chosen by God, and suddenly we realize that we have been making our plans without Him – that we have not even considered Him to be a vital, living factor in the planning of our lives. And yet the only thing that will keep us from even the possibility of worrying is to bring God in as the greatest factor in all of our planning.
In spiritual issues it is customary for us to put God first, but we tend to think that it is inappropriate and unnecessary to put Him first in the practical, every day issues of our lives. If we have the idea that we have to put on our “spiritual face” before we can come near to God, then we will never come near to Him. We must come as we are.
Don’t plan with a concern for evil in mind. Does God really mean for us to plan without taking the evil around us into account? “Love … thinks no evil” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). Love is not ignorant of the existence of evil, but it does not take it into account as a factor in planning. When we were apart from God, we did take evil into account, doing all of our planning with it in mind, and we tried to reason out all of our work from its standpoint.
Don’t plan with a rainy day in mind. You cannot hoard things for a rainy day if you are truly trusting Christ. Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled…”(John 14:1). God will not keep your heart from being troubled. It is a command – “Let not …. “ To do it, continually pick yourself up, even if you fall a hundred and one times a day, until you get into the habit of putting God first and planning with Him in mind.
From the church We're attending
Good News Times
Weekly Newsletter of Puno United Methodist Church
“Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass” (Psalm 37:5)
Don’t plan without God. God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the plans we have made, when we have not taken Him into account. We get ourselves into circumstances that were into chosen by God, and suddenly we realize that we have been making our plans without Him – that we have not even considered Him to be a vital, living factor in the planning of our lives. And yet the only thing that will keep us from even the possibility of worrying is to bring God in as the greatest factor in all of our planning.
In spiritual issues it is customary for us to put God first, but we tend to think that it is inappropriate and unnecessary to put Him first in the practical, every day issues of our lives. If we have the idea that we have to put on our “spiritual face” before we can come near to God, then we will never come near to Him. We must come as we are.
Don’t plan with a concern for evil in mind. Does God really mean for us to plan without taking the evil around us into account? “Love … thinks no evil” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). Love is not ignorant of the existence of evil, but it does not take it into account as a factor in planning. When we were apart from God, we did take evil into account, doing all of our planning with it in mind, and we tried to reason out all of our work from its standpoint.
Don’t plan with a rainy day in mind. You cannot hoard things for a rainy day if you are truly trusting Christ. Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled…”(John 14:1). God will not keep your heart from being troubled. It is a command – “Let not …. “ To do it, continually pick yourself up, even if you fall a hundred and one times a day, until you get into the habit of putting God first and planning with Him in mind.
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