I'm realizing that in these last days, the enemy will do whatever he can in his conniving, sneaky, ever so subtle ways to take our eyes off of God and His Word and start falling away and believing garbage. The intensity with which Jesus Christ and the Bible are being attacked these days are actually proof to me that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life and the Light of the world and likewise His Word is Truth. How else can we explain why Christianity and Jesus and everything about Him is the only 'religion' that is attacked from every possible side? It really does increase my faith in Him! Because through this I can clearly see that the enemy, or Satan, is as the Word says 'like a roaring lion' deceving the nations and keeping people in bondage, accusing the brethren day and night. There is no truth in him; he is a liar and the father of lies. He speaks from his own resources. He knows that Jesus is the Son of God and will do everything in his power (and blindness) to draw people away from Him, blaspheme Him, turn against Him, and fight Him, Him meaning God.
Having said this, we have to be so careful these days, and I say this as a reminder to myself! If we don't stay close to the Word while being mindful of what we hear and what we watch, we are going to fall for some weird, demonic doctrine and find ourselves lukewarm and indifferent to God and His Word. Or we will be watching something on T.V. or video or whatever which will lead us towards temptation and sin. The enemy knows where we're weak and will use what he can to lead us astray. No wonder Jesus said 'If you love mother, brother, wife, husband, children more than me, you are not worthy of me.' You know why? (And I'm just realizing this myself lol) Because if we get caught up trying to please them more than God, you can be sure we won't be doing what pleases God...we will be doing what pleases those around us more, and whatever that 'thing ' is might be hurting us and leading us away from God. God has to be our number one love. We have to be willing to do what He desires, even at the cost of hurting someone that is resisting it. If we get caught up in the emotions, our faith will dwindle. And without faith, it's impossible to please God.
I learned some hard lessons in my last relationship regarding this very issue. I realize now that disobeying God can start leading me to make the wrong decisions and become indifferent to Him and His voice. He eventually rebuked me, yes, and it was at a shameful price. I let my love for someone else take precedence. I let the enemy sway me by trusting my emotions. I let the flesh lead the way. And the last few days have opened my eyes more to the reality that every day is a battle, a spiritual battle, against the enemy and against the flesh. And I told the Lord 'Father, I'm so tired of fighting this battle every single day! Why? I'm so tired of the sin, so tired of the pain, so tired of this corrupt world feeding me lies and lust! I want to be FREE! Free from it all, once and for all!' And I do want to be free...and I will be! And I can be, but being free is dependent on my being dependent on Him and yes, fighting the good fight every single day! And after I've endured, when my time has come, I will finally be totally free!
But while I'm here...while we're here...we must fight. Don't be deceived by the world. Stand firm, keep your guard up and follow Him and love Him with ALL your heart, mind and strength. =)
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
The Rapture: An Old Hope, A New Hope
In John Courson's sermon regarding the trumpets of God earlier this week, he related the trumps of God in Numbers to the trumps of God mentioned in both 1 Cor. 15:52 and 1 Thess. 4:16 that pertain to the Rapture of the Church. At one point, he pointed to the argument that some make against the Rapture, saying that this whole idea was only started last Century in the 1920's by a well-known pastor. To prove this story to be wrong, he mentioned a pastor who lived during the year 300 AD, a Bishop named Ephriam of Misibis. In the year 306, he wrote a book called The End of the World, in which he wrote the following statement:
"Why therefore do we not reject every care of earthly action and prepare ourselves for the meeting of the Lord Christ, so that He may draw us from the confusion which overwhelms this world? All the Saints and the Elect of God are gathered together before the tribulation which is to come, and are gathered to the Lord in order that they may not see the confusion which overwhelms the world because of sin."
Well...I think it's pretty clear what this man is referring to. This hope was alive and well during the 3rd Century. And 1700 yrs later, it is still the hope of many who keep their eyes on Christ and await His eminent return and Rapture of the Church. =)
"Why therefore do we not reject every care of earthly action and prepare ourselves for the meeting of the Lord Christ, so that He may draw us from the confusion which overwhelms this world? All the Saints and the Elect of God are gathered together before the tribulation which is to come, and are gathered to the Lord in order that they may not see the confusion which overwhelms the world because of sin."
Well...I think it's pretty clear what this man is referring to. This hope was alive and well during the 3rd Century. And 1700 yrs later, it is still the hope of many who keep their eyes on Christ and await His eminent return and Rapture of the Church. =)
Monday, February 19, 2007
Nice Bday surprise and more news:)
I had a nice early birthday last Sunday with my mom, Isaiah, my bro and Marcella. They took me to one of my favorite restaurants, Rainforest Cafe, which alone was nice. They then told me they pitched in and payed my way to go to the Men's Retreat in March! That was definitely a nice gift, since I was hoping to go but felt I needed to take care of my debts first before I start spending money, so I was very thankful. :) Then I spent the rest of the afternoon with Isaiah and mom at the park for awhile.
Well... today was the usual Monday…always hard to get up and get going. I actually set my alarm to wake up at 5am this morning to get up before the sun did, because lately when I leave at 7:30 it seems like it should be like 10 am already according to the sun’s position. So I decided I wanted to wake up a lot earlier to beat that sunrise! Lol But like I said, Mondays are always the hardest and I just ended up getting up at the usual time of 6:30. Oh well. I still had time to stop at Starbucks and pick something up, so it wasn’t a total loss. And there was no traffic, which made it a nice drive. But I’m still determined to get up earlier and overcome that blasted habit of rising so late, and actually it’s coming along well. I even got into bed at 10:30 last night, which is unheard of in my case! I can’t even remember the last time I got to bed that early. So I figure if I just keep this up, eventually my body will adjust to it and give in around that time. IF I keep this up. Lol I suppose I’ll slip up here and there only because I’ve been doing this forever now, meaning staying up too late and trying to get up early in spite of that. But the last time I remember being encouraged to get up earlier and be a little more realistic about my situation was reading someone’s answer to a question on the Yahoo Answers site. Someone mentioned the fact that she’s online every night answering questions, thinking she’s going to get enough sleep the next day, only to be faced with the real consequences the next day of being incredibly tired because she stayed up too late, and she mentioned she did this pretty much every night. And all I could think was ‘I do the exact same thing!’ lol And it made me think and wisen up to the fact that I can’t pretend anymore that getting six hours of sleep every night is going to do it for me. It’s just not! So I’ve been changing that around and getting at least seven hrs of sleep every night, and believe me, it’s no easy feat! I admit…I still tend to cut it close and pretend I’m going to be okay, suffering the consequences every morning I do it. And that’s what motivates me to get to bed early is not wanting to face the consequences of being too tired to rise. It’s getting there…slowly but surely.
I’ve been working on two logo projects right now while I have the time, and it came at a perfect time, thank God, because it will help to clear a few past debts that I owe. I actually just paid for one of them. On my next paycheck I should be able to clear the other one, so my debt reduction plan is going well. It’s actually going a little slower than expected because I had a few other debts I needed to clear that I was trying to put on the backburner, but I new that they needed to be dealt with. I guess I was too anxious to start paying off my credit cards and be done with them! But the good news is that with these two projects, I should be able to use that money to get those past debts clear and start paying off large amounts starting next month, so I’m happy about that!
Sheesh I’m saying a lot. I need to break up my blogs a little more. I hate saying so much in one blog.
So, Onoma is still progressing, just a little slowly these days. I think what was slowing it down was not so much the money, but the idea of just waiting for the money to buy postcards to mail out to various Christian stores. I was going to go forward with that in March, but talking with a friend (Benny) made me change my mind about that. He encouraged me to make an appt. and speak to the owners about my clothing face to face and to take some samples with me, which I have. I’ve made appts before in the past but never really followed through. Plus, I didn’t really have any shirts to show, either. If there’s even one element missing in my plans, I won’t go forward with anything, which can be a hindrance in my life. I think some people are better at sales and know how to make the pitch, even without everything in their hands. Me…I have to have everything ready to lay out and show and present. I guess in a good way, I like to prepare for a good presentation and let it speak for itself. At the same time, I know it would be to my advantage to either become a better speaker/salesperson, or bring someone into my company who would be the salesperson, a sort of partner I suppose. Maybe that’s what I need…a partner. I don’t know why I’m going at this alone. I know that success is really dependent on me being dependent on the expertise of others and not just my own knowledge and ability. Hmmm…I’ll have to pray about this.
Other than that, my next class won’t be until around April, New Testament, mainly because I failed to complete the deficit units I signed up, and that was due to a little mixup and communication problem! Argg I’m not going to blame anyone here, because I suppose it was my fault for not just following through on something I knew I needed to take. But I was told something else by someone else, only to find out that that class was absolutely necessary to take in order to keep my F.A., and now, I pretty much lost it! Ugh! And believe me, I wanted to start pointing the finger and justify why I was wronged regarding this, but again, I should have just stuck with the original plan. And I did email Accting and explain my situation, but I think explanations are going to help here. I only hope that this incident may have given them a little insight into the problems that can arise when promises are made and not followed through on, as well as being misinformed and not having the correct information.
Anyhow, all is not lost here. I have enough to retake N.T., and I’ve decided to just take the rest of my G.E.’s at Mt. SAC where I can afford it. I did get one G.E. done at Biola, so that’s good, so I’m not totally bummed out.
Well, enough said for now. I don’t want to write a book here. lol More another day. =)
Well... today was the usual Monday…always hard to get up and get going. I actually set my alarm to wake up at 5am this morning to get up before the sun did, because lately when I leave at 7:30 it seems like it should be like 10 am already according to the sun’s position. So I decided I wanted to wake up a lot earlier to beat that sunrise! Lol But like I said, Mondays are always the hardest and I just ended up getting up at the usual time of 6:30. Oh well. I still had time to stop at Starbucks and pick something up, so it wasn’t a total loss. And there was no traffic, which made it a nice drive. But I’m still determined to get up earlier and overcome that blasted habit of rising so late, and actually it’s coming along well. I even got into bed at 10:30 last night, which is unheard of in my case! I can’t even remember the last time I got to bed that early. So I figure if I just keep this up, eventually my body will adjust to it and give in around that time. IF I keep this up. Lol I suppose I’ll slip up here and there only because I’ve been doing this forever now, meaning staying up too late and trying to get up early in spite of that. But the last time I remember being encouraged to get up earlier and be a little more realistic about my situation was reading someone’s answer to a question on the Yahoo Answers site. Someone mentioned the fact that she’s online every night answering questions, thinking she’s going to get enough sleep the next day, only to be faced with the real consequences the next day of being incredibly tired because she stayed up too late, and she mentioned she did this pretty much every night. And all I could think was ‘I do the exact same thing!’ lol And it made me think and wisen up to the fact that I can’t pretend anymore that getting six hours of sleep every night is going to do it for me. It’s just not! So I’ve been changing that around and getting at least seven hrs of sleep every night, and believe me, it’s no easy feat! I admit…I still tend to cut it close and pretend I’m going to be okay, suffering the consequences every morning I do it. And that’s what motivates me to get to bed early is not wanting to face the consequences of being too tired to rise. It’s getting there…slowly but surely.
I’ve been working on two logo projects right now while I have the time, and it came at a perfect time, thank God, because it will help to clear a few past debts that I owe. I actually just paid for one of them. On my next paycheck I should be able to clear the other one, so my debt reduction plan is going well. It’s actually going a little slower than expected because I had a few other debts I needed to clear that I was trying to put on the backburner, but I new that they needed to be dealt with. I guess I was too anxious to start paying off my credit cards and be done with them! But the good news is that with these two projects, I should be able to use that money to get those past debts clear and start paying off large amounts starting next month, so I’m happy about that!
Sheesh I’m saying a lot. I need to break up my blogs a little more. I hate saying so much in one blog.
So, Onoma is still progressing, just a little slowly these days. I think what was slowing it down was not so much the money, but the idea of just waiting for the money to buy postcards to mail out to various Christian stores. I was going to go forward with that in March, but talking with a friend (Benny) made me change my mind about that. He encouraged me to make an appt. and speak to the owners about my clothing face to face and to take some samples with me, which I have. I’ve made appts before in the past but never really followed through. Plus, I didn’t really have any shirts to show, either. If there’s even one element missing in my plans, I won’t go forward with anything, which can be a hindrance in my life. I think some people are better at sales and know how to make the pitch, even without everything in their hands. Me…I have to have everything ready to lay out and show and present. I guess in a good way, I like to prepare for a good presentation and let it speak for itself. At the same time, I know it would be to my advantage to either become a better speaker/salesperson, or bring someone into my company who would be the salesperson, a sort of partner I suppose. Maybe that’s what I need…a partner. I don’t know why I’m going at this alone. I know that success is really dependent on me being dependent on the expertise of others and not just my own knowledge and ability. Hmmm…I’ll have to pray about this.
Other than that, my next class won’t be until around April, New Testament, mainly because I failed to complete the deficit units I signed up, and that was due to a little mixup and communication problem! Argg I’m not going to blame anyone here, because I suppose it was my fault for not just following through on something I knew I needed to take. But I was told something else by someone else, only to find out that that class was absolutely necessary to take in order to keep my F.A., and now, I pretty much lost it! Ugh! And believe me, I wanted to start pointing the finger and justify why I was wronged regarding this, but again, I should have just stuck with the original plan. And I did email Accting and explain my situation, but I think explanations are going to help here. I only hope that this incident may have given them a little insight into the problems that can arise when promises are made and not followed through on, as well as being misinformed and not having the correct information.
Anyhow, all is not lost here. I have enough to retake N.T., and I’ve decided to just take the rest of my G.E.’s at Mt. SAC where I can afford it. I did get one G.E. done at Biola, so that’s good, so I’m not totally bummed out.
Well, enough said for now. I don’t want to write a book here. lol More another day. =)
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