Feb 08 2011
I’m crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. (Galatians 2:20)
I count myself dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:1-14)
I am a new creation in Christ; the old life is gone, a new life has begun. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
I’ve let my sins and past mistakes die. My old self is no more. I’m now a living as embodiment of Jesus, who takes over my life.
Jun 11 2010
I need to develop my spiritual habits, such as prayer, mediation, bible study, service, or evangelism. However, I was surprised to see that being “simple” is also a spiritual habit that I must have. There is a list of references that points simplicity as biblical, and I can apply some for my life.
In 2 Corinthians 1:12, Paul wrote that we must oppose to wordly wisdom. This world has so many contradictions and “gray” areas, in terms of morality and conduct. But I know my direction comes from the bible, and it can be as simple as black and white. I must seek the simplicity and sincerity of God’s wisdom.
Jesus said I must have the attitude of a little child when seeking the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:2-3) A child is simple and straight to the point. A way to God is simple and straight to the point.
I must give freely and simply. (Romans 12:8) I must cheer for all acts of kindness.
In Proverbs 21:11, God promised to make the simple as wise. I need to make myself less complicated. I need to have an instructable heart, mind, and spirit to receive the knowledge.
Lord, thank you for your saving grace. I come to you now with a child-like attitude, longing for your help and safety. I don’t need this complicated world. There’s only one way and that’s your way, God. Guide me to you and steer me on. By your grace, Amen.
Jan 13 2010
As a Christian, I suffer hardship. I suffer the mockery from others that I’m too proud and judgmental. I suffer the pain of being accused of dishonesty. Some folks will just deny my voice just because I’m a Christian. People expect me to make exceptions for the “happiness” of non-believers, such as cheating on their spouse, gay marriage, or living self-centered lives. They make it clear that what I believe doesn’t matter and has no merit. They don’t even bother examining the source of my beliefs. They resort to discredit and discriminate.
What is the source of my truths? How do I know what’s right and what’s wrong? Read the Bible! It’s God’s word. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus Christ. He has a clear message for me: live a pure life. Jesus is here for the sinners, so sin no more!
Reading the passage of 2 Corinthians 6:3-10, I learned the Apostle Paul had suffered a great deal more than what I’ve been through. However, the comparison is still there, Christians are now being persecuted. But I must not be afraid or discouraged, because I’m not abandoned. I’m not forgotten. What matters to me is God’s approval, not other people’s. What matters to me is that I live a sinless life.
What matters to me is Jesus!
Dec 01 2009
In this gift giving season, people use material things as a token of appreciation to each other. Most are genuine, but some are just plain fake. No wonder the line in the store for returns is always long after December 25.
Today’s devotional from Pastor Rick is about encouragement. If given from the heart and with sincerity, this is an easy gift. It’s also a useful gift that will build character and relationship. Best of all, it’s a gift that I can keep giving, just like the way God has given to me on a daily basis. God doesn’t hold back His love. I have to do the same.
Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
2 Corinthians 9:15
Nov 18 2009
I’ve done it before: Saying white lies. Those are little lies that I thought were harmless. They couldn’t be that bad since they don’t hurt anyone, right? But that’s exactly the problem: How do I know it doesn’t hurt? How do I know if it will not, down the line, and later on in the future? The answer is, I don’t know.
The bible teaches me not to lie (2 Corinthians 6:7). God never lies and he created us in His own image. However, my free will sometimes chose to go to the opposite character of God. I lie to make myself feel and look better. I lie to cover up my bad habits. I lie to escape from doing the right (and difficult) thing.
Since Christ has saved me, I have to let my salvation shows it’s true gifts to my life. God’s truth is the only truth. I have to learn to speak the truth, even when it hurts. In the end, that’s all there is to it.
Nov 06 2009
It’s a question that I’ve heard and asked before. God’s nature is good, but why does He allow pain and suffering to befall on humans? We are His creation so wouldn’t we get the best treatment, all the time? Shouldn’t we be protected and safe all the time? Throughout the bible, God’s people always get the shaft. Adam and Eve learned it the hard way when they ate the forbidden fruit. Joseph was sold as a slave and thrown in jail because people were jealous and hated his righteousness. Job was stripped down to nothing and his family was killed.
There are several reasons why God allows pain:
Free Will
For the longest time, I avoided that Jim Carrey movie called “God Almighty”. I thought the title itself was a bit of a sacrilege and I heard the material was questionable. Then I checked it out myself recently, and it turned out to be a good movie after all. The one message that came from it was: God gave us free will, to do whatever we want.
Of course, free will does have consequences. If misused, it can cause catastrophe, sadness, and pain. Many times, God has given me the option to either obey or disobey Him. I’ve chosen to disobey God frequently because I thought I knew better. Doing the right thing is not always the easy thing. It takes a lot of faith. It takes a lot of grace from God.
Get My Attention
I found out that God whispers to me when times are good, and shouts to me when it’s not. Pain is God’s megaphone. I’ve been busy with my own life that I forgot about God. I forgot to set aside daily bible reading. I forgot about daily prayer. I forgot about God’s commandments.
Very often I wanted to be selfish. God then allows pain to happen so that I realize that I need to change for the better.
Sometimes it takes a painful experience to make us change.
Proverbs 20:30
Teach Me to Depend on God
I can’t do everything myself. I do my best to take care of my family, doing good deeds, and be a lawful citizen. But most of all, I need God to strengthen me. I need God to give me grace when I just can’t do it anymore. I need His mercy to allow me to move on after my mistakes.
Like King David correctly said:
The suffering you sent was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your principles.
Psalm 119:71
Minister to Others
The principle is simple:
…when others are troubled, needing our sympathy and encouragement, we can pass on to them this same help and comfort God has given us.
2 Corinthians 1:4
The pain I’ve experience does humble me. It gives me a new perspective in life. It makes me more sympathetic. I must not waste my pain. I must share how God and I dealt with it. What I learned is valuable to others. It’s wiser to learn from the experience of others. There’s no need for others to experience the same pain as I do.
Dec 02 2008
I have aging parents. I have thought about what to do or say to them when it’s time for them to meet Jesus. As a follower of Jesus, and as a believer, I shall not fear death because I’m precious to God. Dying is not an easy subject to comprehend, but it’s inevitable and I must be able to deal with it. When people are dying and they’re not a believer, they will go through the five stages of grief:
I have to be able to help them deal with it. With God’s help, I can comfort those who are dying.
Confront my own fears. I have to be strong and have already accepted the fact that death is coming for me, too. When I’m at peace with it, I’ll be able to help others as well.
Offer my physical presence. They don’t like to die alone. My precious gift to them is my time – just be there.
Minister with practical assistance. While I’m with them, I can help doing small things like bringing a meal, listen to or talk with them.
Fortify them with emotional support. A practical way is to pray their concerns to God. If they’re worried about their something, bring it up to God. Pray for them, always.
Open them up with care. If they have questions that are tough to answer, mirror their question and rephrase it, such as “What does dying mean to you?” Give them a choice to continue dealing with their emotions.
Remember the family has needs too. Their loved ones are still alive and may require assistance. I have to be there for them too.
Turn them to Jesus. The most important task a believer must do is spread the Good News, even at their death beds. It’s the time to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, so they can be saved and be with Him.
So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
Jun 17 2008
This short interview has been passed around in emails, and I just got it recently from a friend in Toronto. I know this story very well and Pastor Rick had told it to the congregation several times before. It’s still an inspirational message and it’s worth forwarding to everyone.
Love & Blessings to you all. You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now having cancer and him having ‘wealth’ from the book sales. This is an absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren, ‘Purpose Driven Life ‘ author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California.
In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:
People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body– but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act – the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn’t going to make sense.
Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you’re just coming out of one, or you’re getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that’s not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.
This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys – you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don’t believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it’s kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.
You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems. If you focus on your problems, you’re going into self-centeredness,’which is my problem, my issues, my pain.’ But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others. We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her. It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people. You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.
Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don’t think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease. So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.
- First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases.
- Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.
- Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.
- Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.
We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God’s purposes (for my life)?
When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don’t get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn’t put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He’s more interested in what I am than what I do.
That’s why we’re called human beings, not human doings.
Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.
Jan 01 2008
It’s a new year. It sure doesn’t feel like a new year. It’s helpful to look back and learn from my mistakes, but it is more important for me to look forward. When I set my sights on eternity, the new years and birthdays are just not as scary anymore. The bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
My old self is gone indeed! I have to look forward to what I can accomplish, what I can learn, and what I can do for others. From last Sunday, we learned to do these to look forward to the new year:
In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
I must go through all of the doors. If God wanted me to go through it, He will open it for me. If it is God’s will, then nothing will be impossible for me.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Dec 03 2007
This is going to be my first monday devotionals. A collection of inspirational verses that put focus on what I have to do to start off the week.
John 11: 1-6 – Lazarus, Jesus’ best friend, was sick. However, Jesus stayed in Bethany for another 2 days. God works at His own time. I must wait for God’s time.
Ephesians 5:15-20 – Be very careful on how I proceed with my daily routine. Evil lurks in every corner of my life. I get to stumble easily. I need to focus on God’s will and always give glory to Him.
Philippians 3:12-21 – Look out and Look Up! Focus on heaven, a place where God wants me to belong. I should not look at the earthly riches. I must expect heavenly reward for it is more satisfying than worldly reward.
2 Corinthians 5:21 – Jesus saved me. I am right with God if my life is with Jesus.
What now? I must include God in my daily walk, keep looking for heavenly goals, and be careful doing my due diligence – not rushing God.
