Experience True Joy In Our Life (In HIM)
by Yayah on March 10, 2013
For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. (1 Peter 3:12) Emmanuel!
Wait upon The Lord
by Yayah on February 23, 2013
I Samuel 13:7-14
The story is about Saul’s refusal to wait and his impatience led him into disobedience where he supposed not to offer a sacrifice for God. The end of story we knew that he lost the kingdom.
The theme of obedience bring blessing and disobedience bring curse has laid down in the bible through many characters and stories. God wants us to trust Him and obey Him. To wait upon The Lord requires obedience and faith.
Tune your anxious heart to patience,
Walk by faith where sight is dim;
Loving God, be calm and trustful
And leave everything to Him – Chambers
Let us learn to obey Him, wait for God’s timing and trusting His love. He will deliver us.
“Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!” Matthew 25:23
Law, Gospel & Grace
by wee on January 9, 2013
An excerpt from Studies in Sermon on the Mount – Martyn Lloyd Jones
Now this particular danger tends chiefly to manifest itself in the matter of the relationship between law and grace. That has always been true in the Church from the very beginning and it is still true today. Some so emphasize the law as to turn the gospel of Jesus Christ with its glorious liberty into nothing but a collection of moral maxims. It is all law to them and there is no grace left. They so talk of the Christian life as something that we have to do in order to make ourselves Christian, that it becomes pure legalism and there is really no grace in it. But let us remember also that it is equally possible so to over-emphasize grace at the expense of law as, again, to have something which is not the gospel of the New Testament.
Let me give you a classical illustration of that. The apostle Paul, of all men, constantly had to be facing this difficulty. There was never a man whose preaching, with its mighty emphasis upon grace, was so frequently misunderstood. You remember the deduction some people had been drawing in Rome and in other places. They said, ‘Now then, in view of the teaching of this man Paul, let us do evil that grace may abound, for, surely, this teaching is something that leads to that conclusion and to no other. Paul has just been saying, “Where sin abounded grace did much more abound”; very well, let us continue in sin that more and more grace may abound.’ ‘God forbid’, says Paul; and he is constantly having to say that. To say that because we are under grace we therefore have nothing at all to do with law and can forget it, is not the teaching of the Scriptures. We certainly are no longer under the law but are under grace. Yet that does not mean that we need not keep the law. We are not under the law in the sense that it condemns us; it no longer pronounces judgment or condemnation on us. No! but we are meant to live it, and we are even meant to go beyond it. The argument of the apostle Paul is that I should live, not as a man who is under the law, but as Christ’s free man. Christ kept the law, He lived the law; as this very Sermon on the Mount emphasizes, our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. Indeed, He has not come to abolish the law; every jot and tittle has to be fulfilled and perfected. Now that is something which we very frequently find forgotten in this attempt to put up law and grace as antitheses, and the result is that men and women often completely and entirely ignore the law.
Prayer as a way of life
by wee on January 2, 2013
An excerpt from John Macarthur’s book – Alone with God, on frequency of prayer.
I think of praying at all times as living in continual God-consciousness, where everything we see and experience becomes a kind of prayer, lived in deep awareness of and surrender to our Heavenly Father. It is something I share with my Best Friend—something I instantly communicate with God. To obey this exhortation means that, when we are tempted, we hold the temptation before God and ask for His help. When we experience something good and beautiful, we immediately thank the Lord for it. When we see evil around us, we ask God to make it right and to allow us to help accomplish that, if it is according to His will. When we meet someone who does not know Christ, we pray for God to draw that person to Himself and to use us to be a faithful witness. When we encounter trouble, we turn to God as our Deliverer.
Thus life becomes a continually ascending prayer: all life’s thoughts, deeds, and circumstances become an opportunity to commune with our Heavenly Father.In that way we constantly set our minds “on the things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Col. 3:2).
Drifting away
by wee on January 2, 2013
Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
Heb 2:1–4
Henry, M. (1994). Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: Complete and unabridged in one volume (Heb 2:1–4). Peabody: Hendrickson.
(2.) How the gospel is described. It is salvation, a great salvation; so great salvation that no other salvation can compare with it; so great that none can fully express, no, nor yet conceive, how great it is. It is a great salvation that the gospel discovers, for it discovers a great Saviour, one who has manifested God to be reconciled to our nature, and reconcilable to our persons; it shows how we may be saved from so great sin and so great misery, and be restored to so great holiness and so great happiness.
The gospel discovers to us a great sanctifier, to qualify us for salvation and to bring us to the Saviour. The gospel unfolds a great and excellent dispensation of grace, a new covenant; the great charter-deed and instrument is settled and secured to all those who come into the bond of the covenant.
(3.) How sinning against the gospel is described: it is declared to be a neglect of this great salvation; it is a contempt put upon the saving grace of God in Christ, making light of it, not caring for it, not thinking it worth their while to acquaint themselves with it, not regarding either the worth of gospel grace or their own want of it and undone state without it; not using their endeavours to discern the truth of it, and assent to it, nor to discern the goodness of it, so as to approve of it, or apply it to themselves. In these things they discover a plain neglect of this great salvation.
Let us all take heed that we be not found among those wicked wretched sinners who neglect the grace of the gospel.
I was reminded of Qn 2 in Heidelberg Catechism
How many things are necessary for thee to know, that thou, enjoying this comfort, mayest live and die happily?
Answer: Three; (a) the first, how great my sins and miseries are; (b) the second, how I may be delivered from all my sins and miseries; (c) the third, how I shall express my gratitude to God for such deliverance. (d)
Father, help us in our love to you and daily walk with Christ, to love you with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength, less we fall into sin and the hardening of our hearts due to the deceitfulness of sin.
Look back with thanksgiving, look forward with faith
by Yayah on January 2, 2013
But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that i may tell of all Your works. ~Psalm 73:28
As we look forward to the new year, may our heart’s desire is to know Him more, to love Him more, to be near Him and so we may declare all wonderful works of Him.
We received much from Him for the purpose of glorifying His name and to share His love to the people.
Welcome, year 2013!
Perfect Picture of Marriage
by Yayah on December 21, 2012
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Ephesians 5:22-24
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. Ephesians 5:25-27
This is the perfect picture of marriage. It can be happen only when God is in the picture, the Head of the family who helps us to submit to one another. Wife submit to her husband, not in few things but in everything and husband to love his wife not in half hearted but with his whole heart to gave himself for her. How wonderful our marriage would be when each one of us able to obey this Word.
1. Share about God with our partner
2. Giving thanks always unto The Lord (v. 20)
3. Be filled with the spirit (v.18)
4. Read the bible and sing and make music in your heart to the Lord (v. 19)
Let us build our marriage with our whole heart, my dear.
Joy from the Redeemer
by Yayah on December 13, 2012
The joy of God has gone through the poverty of the manger and the agony of the cross, that is why it is invincible, irrefutable. (Bonhoeffer, 1942)
There is nothing in this world, in pain, in death, in sickness, in suffering, in poverty would able to kill the eternal joy that comes from the Redeemer.
Dear Lord, enable us to live in uncertainty of the future, stay with the pain, open our eyes to accept suffering because we know that You are there, in the midst of it and You reigns.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:3-10
True Comfort
by wee on December 12, 2012
Hope
by Yayah on December 11, 2012
“Don’t you forget, there are places in this world that aren’t made out of stone (prison). That there’s something inside that they (people) can’t get to, that they can’ t touch. That is yours (inmates). It calls HOPE.” – Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption
Fear can hold you prisoner, hope can set you free.
This is an uplifting and inspiring message from the movie. I was amazed how hope can make you go beyond what you have, keeps you strong and vibrant in the midst of limitation as a prisoner.
As a Christian, hope enables us to stand firm in the midst of suffering and uncertainty in this world. The hope in Christ will set your eyes to eternity and be strong in trials. Hope keeps you alive and hope brings joy.
Romans 8:24-25
For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Romans 12:12 - Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.