I have been really driven into the Bible lately. And the drive was birthed from a wrenching conviction that loaded unto me when I read John 6.
Jesus has fed the 5000 and when he saw that they would force him to become their king, he withdrawn himself to another town. The people discovered his disappearance and pursue Him. They find him and Jesus had this to say to them:
“…Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.” -John 6:26
Jesus offers Himself as the Bread of Life, but his audience was more concerned with filling their stomachs then being satisfied by “more than bread alone” (Matt 4:4)
I can’t help but see myself among this crowd. Jesus promises Himself as our Sustainer:
Thank Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for your selfless effort to unite a nation by our character and not by our color. I have a white dad and a black mom, so I would not technically be alive if it you weren’t for you.
I look forward to personally thanking you someday up there….
I was startled when my dad told me around the dinner table the other night that Pastor Youcef was released from prison. I had to look it up for myself.
Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani has been freed from prison, following his most recent arrest in Iran. After spending three years in prison for apostacy, Pastor Youcef was freed in early last year September. He was re-arrested on Christmas Day on the charge by Iranian authorities that Youcef needed to complete his remaining 45 days of prison time. (See more on Christmas Tragedies)
Actually, according the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), the Iran pastor was released 11 days ago.
Since 2009, Pastor Youcef has been under arrest under charges of apostacy. During his imprisonment, he was then sentenced to death for converting Muslims to Christianity. Over his imprisonment, he has been taken on and off death row due to the overwhelming international outcry for the pastor’s release.
I hope you all can rejoice with me over Pastor Youcef’s release. We do need to pray for the pastor’s lawyer whom has been recently placed under arrest for advocating for Pastor Youcef.
God is passionate for His glory to shown on the earth. He desires that the earth look to Him and accredit Him for their existence, their success, their capabilities, their strength – their everything pretty much.
The Lord thunders His own greatness in Isaiah 45:5-7:
“I am the Lord, and there is no other; There is no God besides Me. I will gird you, though you have not known Me, that they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other.”
Chris Tomlin’s song “Our God” really grabs you by the shoulders and rattles you to remind us that “Our God is greater”. This song touch me personally when I was under a stockpile of stress. I was in over my head with assignment deadlines and on top of that I was under the weather.
Thank God for Pandora. I had my playlist on and then this song faded in:
Water you turned into wine, opened the eyes of the blind there’s no one like you, none like You! Into the darkness you shine out of the ashes we rise there’s no one like you none like You!
The problems around me grew strangely dim as I listened intently to the song. Then the chorus rolled in:
Our God is greater, our God is stronger, God you are higher than any other. Our God is Healer, Awesome in Power, Our God! Our God!
I felt like an idiot for a brief instant. I thought: “I’ve been adopted by the God who is all awesome in power and I am here moaning in anxiety?”
Romans 8:31 rung loudly in my soul: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Sounds very familiar to the bridge of the song doesn’t it?
And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us. And if our God is with us, then what could stand against. And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us. And if our God is with us, then what could stand against. What could stand against.
God is passionate about exerting His power to us so we can see and confess His awesomeness. God delights in these situations, because it’s an opportunity for us to experience His excellent, everlasting strength when we call on Him for help.
For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him. (2 Chronicles 16:9 NKJV).
Our God is greater than all and fill in the blank. I’m so grateful that God has blessed us with songs like these that awake our soul to turn our eyes upon God and trust in Him.
Dealing with heartache is a life transition that still today I struggle traveling through.
Maybe everyone does.
Old Wounds seem to reopen and refresh their infliction. Last night I reminisced a girl that I really loved and I grieved for her all over again. It seemed it was just yesterday that this pain occurred.
Some immediate remedies I find in the Bible are “the Lord is close to the broken hearted” (Psalms 34:18 NKJV). Strength to find that God will meet me at my pain.
“Pour out your heart before [The Lord]” (Psalms 62:8 NKJV). I can cry to God. That’s soothing to me that I can just fall apart to Someone. I can just vent all my hurts, upsets, etc to Him.
It’s been 18 years since God adopted me into His family. I do feel belonged to Him, but honestly there are times where I still struggle with just running to Him first and disclose my pain, rather than dealing with it my way.
I think also that I’m just feel pulled to releasing my hurt to another human soul. Even then Jesus is also man who sympathize with our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15 NKJV).
Please if you can pray for me.
Thank God that He is a refuge to all of us, especially during the storms of life.
And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” So God granted him what he requested. (I Chronicles 4:10 NKJV)
The prayer of Jabez was a cry of a man, in his pain, to God for a breakthrough of blessing for his life. Dr. Bruce H. Wilkinson popularizes Jabez’s prayer in his book, Prayer of Jabez. From his focused study, Wilkinson reveals Biblical evidence that God wants to answer our prayers. He wants us to center ourselves around Him and He also wants us to bless our lives. We deprave ourselves of betterment in life when we neglect to involve God into our lives. Jesus himself said,”You have not because you ask not.”
Wilkinson leads readers to allow God transform their lives to be blessed and influence people to see Christ by personalizing the prayer of Jabez into our daily lives, taking Jabez’s initiative to just ask God. Wilkinson dissects the prayer into four parts: first Jabez ask God to bless him. Second, He ask to expand his territory or increase his responsibility. Third, He asks God to draw close to Him. Lastly, He asks for safety. It’s not prayer for prosperity, but a plea to change and succeed in order to exalt God.
I’ve used this book as a devotional, and I can say in this little prayer, there are giant openings to experience God uplifting your circumstances and directing your passion in prayer to be changed and blossom for God.
Esther was queen of the largest empire in her age. Out of hundreds of women, she was chosen as the new wife for the King of Babylon.
Her rise to prestige was miraculous, but it was also providential. There arose a threat that impended doom over the existence of Jewish race.
Esther’s fatherly cousin believed it was not by chance Esther became queen. He felt her succession to the throne was the power to save their people.
For Esther to appeal before the king without permission could cause her death. Aware of this, Cousin Mordecai commented: For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
As much as we want it, life does not guarantee security. Like Israel’s king, David, our lives change for the worse in a moment.
David was on the run for his life. Previously, he was a national hero, slaying the giant Goliath and winning wars; now he was an enemy of the state, a fugitive in his own homeland by the invidious King Saul.
While he “twiddled” under the king’s thumb, David , David professes full confidence in God. He says in one of his escapes, “In You, O LORD, I put my trust” (Psalm 31:1 NKJV)
Where is your trust? I can be the first to pipe “Jesus”, but history exposes me to all the past instances that I turned to resolve my problems on my own.
One time at the TV studio where I intern, I deleted a show sequence we just recorded!- and I remember how I…
“In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him”. 1 John 4:9 NKJV
God is passionate for His glory. He acts in mighty ways to make us turn our eyes upon Him and worship Him.
In Israel, there were twelve stones that were erected as a memorial. The memorial reminded Israel Who brought them to the Promise Land. This was what Israel was to say when asked for the reason of the stones:
“…for the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed over,
that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.” (Joshua 4:23, 24 NKJV)
What do the stones mean? They meant that the world needed to look at God and fear Him. Israel had no capability to cross the Jordan river. The stones reminded them their success was the result of God’s intervention.
God still acts today to steal our attention on ourselves and to get us to stand in awe at God. He is Almighty God, and we need to accredit Him the honor that is due to His name.
FOLLOW THE SON 