It All Starts with God

Day One
Thinking about My Purpose

Points to Ponder: It's not about me.

Verse to Remember: "Everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him." Colossians 1:16b (Msg)

Question to Consider: In spite of all the advertising around me, how can I remind myself that life is really about living for God, not myself?
__________________________________________________________

Setting my mind on God's given eternal life must be best reminder. If I live my life now with eternity in mind, the things that I am worried of, burdened with, or anxious about will not matter anymore. These things will perish with time, but the relationship that I have with God will last forever and ever.

We Bow Down

(View Daily Bread)

Psalm 95 (NIV)
1 Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.

3 For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.

6 Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.

Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah in the desert,
9 where your fathers tested and tried me,
though they had seen what I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I said, "They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they have not known my ways."
11 So I declared on oath in my anger,
"They shall never enter my rest."

__________________________________________________________

It's something so true that I learn today. Kneeling down during worship is of no use if your heart is not humble.

God looks at your heart. Though kneeling down is a physical display of obedience, it needs to come with a humble heart that truly is obedient to God. The attitude that we have during worship matters far more.

No More Mowing

(View Daily Bread)

Luke 10:38-42 (NIV)
At the Home of Martha and Mary

38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"

41 "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

__________________________________________________________

Knowing our priorities in life is important. For a couple of months this year I was too caught up with my job, my technological interest, news, and stuff like that. Reading them on a daily basis almost seems more important than the bible.

Though what I did wasn't wrong (working and reading), it certainly wasn't the most important thing that I had to do. I'm glad I've realigned my priorities to do what's most important. Daily communion with my Lord.

If you're like me, always giving excuses that you're busy, pause and think for a moment. What's more important? Is it your daily pursuit of earthly things? Or spending time with our eternal God our Father?

Celebrate Freedom

(View Daily Bread)

Romans 6:15-23 (NIV)
Slaves to Righteousness

15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

19 I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

__________________________________________________________

Today's message reminds me of the days when I was still deeply ensnared in the tangle of sin on a daily basis. Being angry with people, gossiping, speaking ill, stealing, gambling, sexual impurity, putting on a false front, being lazy, gluttony, the list goes on.

I wasn't born a pure person. Even if I am, the world around me would have made me impure anyway. Thinking back to days without God was a total mess. I was caught up in an endless swirl of sins, a maze that I don't wish to get out from. It's true that "when you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness"(v20).

Praise be unto the Lord who has freed me from my sins. I could have never gotten out if not for Your love, grace, mercy and patience. You saved my sinful life and now I gladly be a slave to righteousness, to allow You to lead me to holiness. You broke down my sins by showing me that nothing is too big that you cannot handle. You gave me strength and confidence to face myself, on a clean white slate.

Thank you Father. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Holy Spirit.

Irreverence

(View Daily Bread)

Acts 12:20-24 (NIV)
Herod's Death

20 He had been quarreling with the people of Tyre and Sidon; they now joined together and sought an audience with him. Having secured the support of Blastus, a trusted personal servant of the king, they asked for peace, because they depended on the king's country for their food supply.

21 On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. 22 They shouted, "This is the voice of a god, not of a man." 23 Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.

24 But the word of God continued to increase and spread.

__________________________________________________________

Give credit of all that you have to God. He alone gives. Anything that you possess, is in your possession only when God gives them to you. No matter is your life, family, friends, relationships, food, water, talent, knowledge, wisdom, passion, job or anything else that you have.

Ignoring God

(View Daily Bread)

Psalm 63:1-8 (NIV)
A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah.

1 O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.

2 I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
3 Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

6 On my bed I remember you;
I think of you through the watches of the night.
7 Because you are my help,
I sing in the shadow of your wings.
8 My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.

__________________________________________________________

I've probably ignored daily communion with God for too long. Today when I decided to pick it up it's actually telling me this message. How God plans things is more than I can fathom.

But I'm glad though, for these few verses and this entry in ODB really bring me back to Him.

Whitewater Experiences

(View Daily Bread)

1 Chronicles 28:9-20 (NIV)
David's Plans for the Temple

9 "And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever. 10 Consider now, for the Lord has chosen you to build a temple as a sanctuary. Be strong and do the work."

11 Then David gave his son Solomon the plans for the portico of the temple, its buildings, its storerooms, its upper parts, its inner rooms and the place of atonement. 12 He gave him the plans of all that the Spirit had put in his mind for the courts of the temple of the Lord and all the surrounding rooms, for the treasuries of the temple of God and for the treasuries for the dedicated things. 13 He gave him instructions for the divisions of the priests and Levites, and for all the work of serving in the temple of the Lord, as well as for all the articles to be used in its service. 14 He designated the weight of gold for all the gold articles to be used in various kinds of service, and the weight of silver for all the silver articles to be used in various kinds of service: 15 the weight of gold for the gold lampstands and their lamps, with the weight for each lampstand and its lamps; and the weight of silver for each silver lampstand and its lamps, according to the use of each lampstand; 16 the weight of gold for each table for consecrated bread; the weight of silver for the silver tables; 17 the weight of pure gold for the forks, sprinkling bowls and pitchers; the weight of gold for each gold dish; the weight of silver for each silver dish; 18 and the weight of the refined gold for the altar of incense. He also gave him the plan for the chariot, that is, the cherubim of gold that spread their wings and shelter the ark of the covenant of the Lord.

19 "All this," David said, "I have in writing from the hand of the Lord upon me, and he gave me understanding in all the details of the plan."

20 David also said to Solomon his son, "Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the Lord is finished.

__________________________________________________________

No matter what comes your way, remind yourself. God is with you.

I am forever in His safe arms. No matter what.