30 Jan 2009

I.T.:


My ampalaya is on Exodus 14:13 fear ye not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord.

Swak yung QT ko ngayon sa buhay ko. The title alone (Are you stressed?) made me smile, sabay tingin sa sky and say: God, papagalitan nyo ako ngayon ano?

I was reprimanded by God that i should not feel overwhelmed with my work to the point of wanting to crack. You see, my life is soooooo hectic these days because of sooooooooo many work and deadlines.

My usual work sked these days is: wake at 3am and work till 5am. go to the office at 8am and work till 6pm. go home and eat dinner. Then return to work around 8pm and work till 11pm. Lukaret ano?

Ang teknik daw eh to go outside the situation. It's as if you are standing beside God and looking at the situation. if you do that, you see the situation more clearly and you don't panic. We have nothing fear... but we have to stand firm... that nothing can distract us from clinging to God.

So now, I am going to work and smile and be cool :-) our God is beside us and nothing should make us tremble except his great love for us.


J.B.:


"Is your relationship with God sufficient for you to expect Him to exhibit His wonderful life in you?" Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest July 9
.

God knows us. He knows just what to say and it is just amazing! When faced with difficult situation or people, God never tells us to do anything else, He never tells us to fight or flight. The only thing that He wants us to do is LOVE.

"The entire law is summed up in a single command: Love your neighbor as yourself." GAL 5:14

An honest to goodness smile works wonders. It's the first thing you do when you love.

29 Jan 2009

J.B.:

"You have no business trying to find out where God is leading - the only thing God will explain to you is Himself." Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest July 8


I think I found out what's wrong and I realized that during last night's prayer meeting.

I lack the desire and the delight to be with the Lord.

This is really hard to admit. For the past two weeks or so, I have become fixated on the idea of marriage and having a family, what with the two weddings that I emceed in this month. I'm not sure but what I know is that I never get to that point in my life before when I constantly think of getting married (because first of all, I'm single) and being fixated at it had thrown me off - I think about it a whole lot to the point that I hardly know myself! This is what fading feels like.

I am grateful that once again, the Holy Spirit guided me and let me know what needs to be paid attention to. Grabe, 'yun na 'yun! That's what's been wrong! I had given more time on daydreaming than on the Lord.

28 Jan 2009

I.T.:


I had a hard time with my QT today. I felt like I know it already and can't seem to extract new juices from the ampalaya which is....

John 16:24 Ask and you will receive and your joy will be complete.

Then it struck me... I should apply the verse at that exact time. I should ASK something/s from GOD and see how God will give it to me. Then I can share later what joy I got from asking and receiving.

The author expounding on this verse said that asking does not really mean big things always. We can also ask for small "miracles" as our God is a God of big and small miracles.

So for this morning, I tried thinking of 3 simple things. I had a hard time so I just came up with: (1) a simple ride going to the bank; (2)

around 10am, I received a surprise :-) somebody who owe me money visited the office and gave me P10T.

And at the end of the day, the three simple things did not materialize.

Nag-isip tuloy ako....

I believe God knew I needed the money more than the 3 simple things. It was a QT prayer request of mine a few weeks ago. The person who owed me that money ay nalugi sa biznez... so I knew it was a bit hard for the money to be returned and if ever it will, I did not expect it this month or the next few months.

God made my JOY really complete even though I did not get the 3 simple things. He knew what I really wanted and He gave it to me.

Indeed, our God is a God of miracles.. a God who knows what we really want... and a joy giver!



J.B.:

"Wait for the Lord
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord." Ps. 27:14


This is one thing that I fear - the feeling that nothing is happening in my spiritual life, that things have become idle. This is when I get stuck in a rut. One reason why this happens is sin. The thing that takes me away from God is sin and I must have this conscious effort to be an over comer of sin.

The waiting part is hard when I seem to be separated from the Lord. Although I seem not to hear from Him, he wants me to know that the thing to do is take heart and wait. And that, coming from Him, is all that I need to know.

27 Jan 2009

I.T:

i trulili enjoyed my QT. . .made me really think and kalkal my innermost skeletons.

If dyesebel is a sirena that pinoys would love to have in their aquarium ... in the bible or in God's ampalaya, Jezebel stands for something else that not even your tabo would love to have :-)

Having a Jezebel spirit (of course derive from queen jezebel from the book of Kings) means having a tricky agenda of seducing us from our relationshop with God and what He has called us to do. This jezebel spirit can manifest in many forms in our life (fear, discouragement, confusion, terror, cowardice, etc) with the sole aim of tearing us away from God (aba sineswerte sya!). A good example for me: sharing the ampalaya is such a terrfying thing for me. If this happens, we need to ask God to help us. We need to repent so we will be restored. The good news is that everything Jesus did on the cross was meant to restore us!

then i pondered some more.....

what if i look at this in another angle? do i dare do it? yes!

I have to admit that there are times in my life that i am the jezebel to other people. nakakahiya ano? but then its true! i have put fear or discouragement in other people by some of my ways. and by doing that, i know i have turned them off from God :-(

My Mom gets mad at me when i can't seem to find anything right with what she says/does. or my past bfs might have been so mad at me coz i broke up with them.

So i guess i shd not only repent that i let the jezebel spirit get in my life BUT MORE SO because i have been a jezebel to some people.

kaya nga ba diosa na lang ako ngayon eh. hahaha

26 Jan 2009


I.T.:

An intimate friend loves out of commitment, not on condition. It doesn't happen overnight and it's not love at first sight. When you have this, especially on marriage, it's a little bit of heaven right here on earth. God was more than an intimate friend for us because he went to the length of dying for us!

Challenge: Make a date with a person just to talk and get to know him/her more.

Lord, at the start of this week, I pray for wisdom to sort my priorities. Let me keep my sense of humor and enjoy a hearty chuckle. Calm my nerves with mental flashes from Your Word, and at the end of each day, let me genuinely say, "Thank you Lord for giving me such a wonderful life." Amen.


J.B.:

"Life is not an idle ore
But iron dug from central gloom,
And battered by the shocks of doom
To shape and use." Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest July 6

"Let not your hearts be troubled." John 14:1

Ctrl-Z
is not applicable to real-life.
but God sure allows us to Ctrl-Alt-Del.


25 Jan 2009

J.B.:

"Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good, O Lord." Ps. 25:7

"Turn to me and be gracious to me for I am lonely and afflicted." Ps. 25:16

It can be really frustrating when the sins of the past haunts us but there really isn’t a point in remembering what God has already forgotten.

I've confessed and I've repented - and I must've done this a hundred times for the same sin. But God is gracious. He forgives and urges me to move on, that is only if I truly repent.

It is only with the help of the Holy Spirit that we can truly repent. We can ask the Holy Spirit to search our hearts of our transgressions and help point out a specific area in our life where we keep sinning. Lock-in to a specific sin and ask for forgiveness. Moving on, one forgiven sin at a time.

24 Jan 2009


I.T.:
This revolved around the of a 50-year old lady who doesn't want to wear eyeglasses anymore as she thinks it makes her look older. She prayed for that yearning. She came across lasic surgery and thought it was God's answer. So she went to a doctor for an evaluation, who said her eyesight had greatly improved that she doesn't need the lasic surgery and even her eyeglasses!

The lesson? God is so nice that even our "kapritso" (kaartehan??) is granted. He is the God who answers all our needs and even our WANTS! We can't really put a limit to what He can do for us. All we have to do is trust and pray for it.


J.B.:

"Do not fret - it leads only to evil." Ps. 36:8

"This 'Do not' must work during our days of difficulty and understanding, as well as our peaceful days, or it will never work." Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest July 4

I am guilty of this sin because sometime last week I claimed that I was stressed because of lack of stressors. I thought it was my hormones that were responsible for the mood swings. I'm grateful to be one of those ladies who never get bodily pains during PMS but I definitely get the manic mood swings. I was an emotional, complicated wreck.

Women have to deal with these things. For me, it was so indulging to give in to these moods - the smallest thing irritates me and when that happens I like to keep irritated the whole day. But when I feel it creeping in, one way to ward it off is to rebuke it out loud, "Lord, may your Holy Spirit be upon me. Help me to get rid of this feeling."

23 Jan 2009

J.B.:

"Discipleship means personal, passionate devotion to a person - our Lord Jesus Christ. . . Our Lord never proclaimed a cause. . . No one on earth had this passionate love for the Lord Jesus unless the Holy Spirit has given it to him." Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest July 2

We must seek the Holy Spirit each time to help us to "devotion-check" our lives. There are things in this world that we cannot help but feel strongly about because they give us diversions from reality, from dealing with the mundane, utterly boring things, and they give us a charming idea of what our lives could be like.

People become fans of books and fictional characters, causes ("Gloria Resign"), persons (boyfriends, girlfriends, leaders). We buy volumes of such books and magazines and read them extensively. We get worked up when a leader is being unjust and it fans the flames of passion to overthrow, to avenge. Likewise we get worked up when a certain person gives us the satisfaction that we seek, that we think could make us whole, and it gives us a passion to indulge, to give our all.

Do we get worked up in our passion to serve Jesus? Let's check our nightstand, our bookshelves, our walls, our lives. Do we see things that make Jesus smile? Or do we add to his wounds on the cross?

22 Jan 2009

I.T.'s

In life there are problems we can't seem to solve. Dun pumapasok dapat si God. Sabi nga sa 1 Peter 5:7 "Cast all your worries and cares for He cares about us. . . " God has never forsaken nor forgotten us although He doesn't always give us the answers we are looking for, His answer always brings peace.


J.B.'s

"The Horse is made ready for the day of battle but victory rests with the Lord." Prov 21:31

There really isn’t a point in worrying when you are right with God, which is why it is highly important to get to know Him and His ways because we cannot claim oneness with Him if we hardly pay attention to the things that are of Him. Nothing else matters.

21 Jan 2009

I. T.:

My QT made me step back and analyze the CAVES in my life...

Caves are where one would want to run and hide when tribulations attacks us. It's the perfect escape as it is dark enough to provide the seclusion one needed. And when i think of caves, what comes to my mind are places/situations na akala mo safe ka and akala mo nobody sees you or you are not harming anybody kaya you go there. We forget that caves can be very tricky... you don't know what is inside and therefore you don't know what may happen to you!

For some people, when tribulations come in their life their caves can be drugs (im not hurting anybody when i use it and i feel good at the same time), immoral relationships (i feel secure in his/her arms), food (eating makes me happy...esp comfort food), partying all night long (it gives a certiain high, laugh till your nose bleed, disco to the max till so that when i go home, bagsak ako sa bed to sleep), etc.

Our reasons go on...

But Matthew 24:35 says that everything (even heaven and earth) will pass away BUT His WORDS will NOT. And in John 16:33 it says that the world may have tribulations but be of good cheer as He has OVERCOME the world.

What does this mean for us?

Yes, we will experience tribulations in this world. Nobody is exempted from that - even JOB, a righteous person, was not. But as christians we need not run and scamper to these/our caves as we have God's Word and promise that everything will come to pass. He will overcome!

And i say AMEN to that! (may kasama pang singhot.... hay grabe pagmamahal ng God sa atin)


J.B.:


"Even a child is known by his actions, by whether his conduct is pure and right." Prov. 20:11

"Always beware of any assessment of life which does not recognize the fact that there is sin." O. Chambers My Outmost for His Highest


Lack of stressors can be stressful. I am actually afraid that I am not being swamped with school work. What's up with this "peteks" mode? Do I deserve this? Or is it because I am not giving it the just time that it needs?

As a Christian though, I ought to always be on my feet, not letting my guard down. I must be able to recognize - this inability to concentrate on the bible, this lack of time spent in prayer, these unguarded thoughts, this unserviceability, this lack of motivation - as things that must not be overlooked.

Father God in Heaven, I praise you and thank you Lord for the health and the ability to perform in every day life. May your spirit be always upon me, Father, so I will always be on guard and up and running the second that you call. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

20 Jan 2009

J.B.:

" (…) Do not say 'I am only a child.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you." declares the LORD. Jer. 1:7-8

This 'ampalaya' is very good, nothing can replace it. What beautiful way to get to know God and to claim His promises!

A sincere smile is a way of worshipping the Lord. It is what you do when you don't know what else is there to do or say. In a way, it is modesty. A smile can get you through life's struggles, it can knock your enemies' socks off! Plus, it's therapeutic.

Because again, it is not about me.

"(…) When we are on a mission for Jesus Christ, there is no time to stand up for ourselves. 'Do not worry about whether or not you are being treated justly.' Looking for justice is a sign that we have been diverted from our devotion to Him (….) 'continue steadily on with what I have told you to do, and I will guard your life.'" O. Chambers My Outmost for His Highest

The Lord says He will be with us and knowing this is reason enough to smile in whatever circumstances you find yourself in - an irritating commute, an unfair boss, lousy jeepney drivers.



I.T.:

my ampalaya for today is found in John 8:36: If the Son sets us free, we'll be free indeed.

nakakatawa kasi the author related the ampalaya to losing weight!!!! (God, pinatatamaan mo talaga ako ano?)

the author said that losing weight is more than a physical effort. to be successful, one needs God to set one free from the bondage of overeating...not exercising...eating bad food...etc.

hayyy naku! napatingin nga ako sa high heavens and napa-shamelessly utter ng: opo, nakikinig po ako.

buti na lang ginawa kong prayer item ito with you nung sunday. at least i know i took the FIRST RIGHT step. toink!

19 Jan 2009

I.T.:

2 Cor. 9:8
God is able to make all grace come to you in abundance.


We are very much assured that we have an abundant supply of EVERY resource we need kasi kay God WALANG shortages o crises. We have to speak of abundance and not LACK kasi yan ang ampalaya ni God :)

J.B.:

"Prayer is the practice of drawing on the grace of God and we can always pray in our moment of need (….) in whatever condition we may find ourselves." O. Chambers My Outmost for His Highest

"I had a shitty week." Troy Reality Bites


I know what Troy must feel, I am familiar with the feeling and it's been a while since I have felt it since I became a Christian when I thought I would've overcame it, became victorious over it. But that's me boasting again, relying on my own competence, on not being dependent on God. I must've missed something last week for allotting most of my time on me and forgetting that God is present on every detail of my life.