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Monday, September 28, 2009

Ephesians 5:18-19
18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
19 speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.

Pastor Reuben spoke about strengthening yourself in the Lord as David did. (1 Samuel 30:6)

We were taught that there are two ways to strengthen yourself in the Lord.
1. To constantly worship God.
2. To constantly feed upon God's Word.

In Ephesians 5:19, it shows us an example of what it means to do both.

By speaking in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, you remind yourselves about God's goodness. At the same time, by singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, you are worshipping God.

When you do this, the Word gives insight to something that happens to us as new testament believers; you are being filled with the Spirit.

There are going to be moments where you will feel dry, spiritually and emotionally. In such moments, take out the Word of God, and read a psalm over yourself. Or just be led by the Spirit and allow a psalm to flow out from your heart.

Let us be filled with the Spirit.

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@ 8:54 PM

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Genesis 2:16-17
16 The Lord commanded the man saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;
17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat from it you will surely die."

We understand that Adam and Eve did eat of the fruit eventually.
However, upon eating the fruit they did not die physically.

They experienced spiritual separation from God.
In the separation they experienced, came the separation of the Godly nature within them as well.

God is love, so when God's nature departed from them, divine love departed from them as well.

Hence ever since then, man were only able to love in their limited human capacity.

However the Word tells us something about the coming of Jesus.

Romans 5:5
And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.

Now we have divine love in us again, through the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, let us renew our minds according to the Word of God and walk in the ways of His divine love.

Let us keep growing in His likeness, because God is love. 1 John 4:8

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@ 11:41 AM

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Saw this video on Jon Choy's cell blog.

Thought it'll be good to share it with you guys since the previous post was about love as well.

Let this video speak to you; that our heavenly Father showers on us a love greater than any earthly father could.

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@ 7:33 PM

Monday, September 14, 2009

The scripture reference for this teaching is one that all of you will be familiar with.

But as I studied this scripture with different translations, I came upon The Message version. This version brings a different perspective to this verse which I feel, gives a greater insight to the heartbeat of God.

1 Cor 13:1-10
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. 2If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. 3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

I trust that by meditating on these scriptures, you will already begin to learn some of the things that I will share in the next entry.

But for now, think about this.
The bible tells us in 1 John 4:8, that God is love.
Hence, when we start to renew our minds and grow in the likeness of Christ, we ourselves become more like love.

Do this exercise as often as you can.

Replace the word "love" with "I" or "I will".
Meaning, instead of, Love never gives up.
Say this to yourself, I will never give up.

And begin to speak these verses of life over yourself.

Allow God to reveal to you a deeper understanding into His indescribable love.

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@ 5:58 PM

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

I'll post two entries back to back to make up for the missing entry last week.

Ephesians 4:28
28 He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labour, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.
29 Let no unwholesome talk proceed from your mouth but only such a word that is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.

I will not elaborate much on the verse 28 because its pretty straightforward.
The context of that, is that it was a norm in Ephesus to steal. It was such a norm that it was hard not to do it. Hence the Word was given to them by Paul to walk in the ways of Christ and instead of stealing, to work for their own money so that they may give.

Verse 29, one of the first few verses that was drilled into you guys.
We are not called to be boring people. At the same time, being interesting as a person does not equate to the need to constantly talk nonsense to draw attention to ourselves, or to spice up the atmosphere.

Something good to start with, would be to purpose yourself to intentionally encourage someone everyday, or to hold back anything that might hurt someone.

Pray for wisdom. If you say something, and you feel uncomfortable in your spirit man, you know you said something wrong.

Let us all grow in this area of the spoken word.

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@ 10:58 PM

Hey all.

Sorry for the late update. Thanks to the bunch of you that went down to support Auntie Wendy, Rachel, Ryan, Russell and Reuben at Uncle William's funeral. I trust that you guys are still keeping all of them in prayer.

We'll continue from where we left off.

Ephesians 4:26-27
26 Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,
27 and do not give the devil an opportunity.

Notice, what does the Word say? It says, do not let the sun go down on whose anger?
Yours!
The Word tells us that its ok to be angry, but not to sin while being angry.

How do we do that? YOU do not let the sun go down on YOUR anger.

It doesn't mean that..
you have to resolve the issue instantly.
you deny your anger.

it means however, that you have to humble yourself before God.
and lift your anger to Him. and choose to love.
and seek Him for a solution to the situation that caused you to be upset.

This verse is quickly followed with verse 27..
"and do not give the devil an opportunity".

Why? this simply shows us, that the longer you hold on to your anger, you give the devil an opportunity to work in your mind.

Let us learn how to deal with our issues in a Godly manner,
and walk in a manner which pleases Him.

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@ 10:33 PM