Miah Learns to Write

Would you believe that God still works miracles even to this very day? Yes, He does! Just as Jesus, when He came to the world, made blind eyes to see and the lame to walk, healed all kinds of diseases and cast out evil spirits and set people free. He still does it because He is alive and He is moving in the lives of His people, showing His power to be true and His love to be enduring. Countless miracles happen still to this very day as with the testimony of Pastor James Baker's wife, Genie Baker. They visited Jerusalem and came to the pool of Bethesda. This was where Jesus healed the invalid man who had been waiting there for 38 years in one of the benches to take his turn to wash in the pool and get healed. When Jesus told him to pick up his mat and walk, he was completely healed. In the same way, while sister Genie was sitting on one of those benches, she felt a burning sensation in her lower back which had been causing her pain for most part of their trip. She aske

How I thought this day would turn out like any other never fully expecting what lies ahead and how I have been amazed at how seemingly normal days turn out to go in a different direction. I have had some nerve-wracking experiences that made me hold on to God even tighter than ever before, one of these encounters was when I was alone walking on a familiar street in the middle of the day but it was raining and the street was empty then all of a sudden somebody stops me in my tracks and asks money from me as he put his arm around my shoulder as if that was a comforting gesture. That day, God showed me that He is my Protector and no matter what kind of people I face, He will always be there to be my Rock and my Savior. Today, as I said, seemed normal but quickly shifted since on my way to campus, I immediately stumbled upon a roadblock due to a sudden halt in operation of the train (MRT) so I decided to take another route and chose to take the other trains (LRT-1 and LRT-2) to get

Today, our pastor delivered the last part of a series titled "CHRISTLIKE" which we have taken up for the past four weeks. Now, we reach the final riveting message regarding our spiritual walk with God and how Jesus modeled the life that we ought to live. The last topic ties the past three messages together and befits the call to be like Christ in every aspect of our lives but more importantly focusing on Jesus' unwavering commitment and devotion to the Father. Perhaps the biggest struggle that we humans have in our lives is honoring the commitments that we have made before God, before other people, and even those that we make for ourselves. Something we often fail to do is to stick it out until the end because when the pain of fatigue sets in or when we fail to see immediate results of our labor, we start to think that all our effort have been for naught. It is worthless to continue especially if the path of our lives become steeper and more difficult to trav

The last portion of David's resolution and vows to God ultimately conveys how he will deal with every single day from the rising of the sun to its setting place and how he will deal with those under his care and rule. He tells us with which kind of people he will be associating with and how he will deal with those who live a life contrary to the ways of God and His righteousness, who stubbornly continue to live steeped in sin. In Psalm 101:6-8 , it says: "My eyes will be on the faithful in the land, that they may dwell with me; he whose walk is blameless will minister to me.  No one who practices deceit will dwell in my house; no one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence. Every morning I will put to silence all the wicked in the land; I will cut off every evildoer from the city of the Lord." We see that David places great importance to the connections and relations he develops with other people and how he holds people who live righteous and faithful live

This day marks the end of our classes for the second semester of my freshman year in university. Although technically the following week would be Finals Week and we would settle that last ordeal as the last requirement for our subjects and of course, we would. All the same, I am so excited that I have almost finished one whole academic year in college and not only did I survive but I also am able to live and breathe as a university student and learn from different people in different fields and make friends with them. Adapting to the environment of college has been quite an exciting experience for me and I am hopeful for the next years of my life in college. In the last lap of the race, let us still continue to be steadfast and hold on until the end. In the race of life, as with anything else, it matters not whether you started out vigorously and far ahead the pack or slow and lagging behind rather what matters most is how you finish and you must diligently persevere to finish

Today has been a blast! Chock-full of energy and bursting with joy, I thank God for His faithfulness and His hand at work in my life. I truly feel that I am blessed by God for giving me different kinds of opportunities to experience Him in a whole new way that refreshes me and invigorates me even more to serve Him and to share my testimony and faith to other people. I thank God because despite the other priorities I have lined up for me in the coming days, He fills my heart, mind, and soul with peace that encompasses any worldly boundaries and joy that brings strength despite the hardships that you have to endure. I am so glad because I see that God is making ways for me to reach out to people and to share the wonderful gift of salvation that I received from Him by accepting Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. I thank God because He is true to His promises and faithful to His Word; truly He hears us when we call to Him and He directs our paths toward a full and mean

In dealing with other people around him, David vowed to God that he would stay away from gossip and pride. These are very destructive forces in life and they can destroy relationships and bring us far away from God. David makes it clear that for us to be victorious in our public life, we need to always stay humble and conduct ourselves in a manner that builds other people up instead of tearing them down. In Philippians 2:3 , Paul even goes further and tells us that we need to " consider others better than ourselves." The way we treat others and how we show regard toward them reflect our lives immensely and for Christians, we need to follow the example that Jesus has set for us in His own life. In Psalm 101:5 , David says: "Whoever slanders his neighbor in secret, him will I put to silence; whoever has haughty eyes and a proud heart, him will I not endure." According to one of my professors, she regarded gossip to be a national pastime in the Philippines

As David forged his list of vows to the Lord in living a life devoted to Him, he first focused on his private and personal life beginning from his own lifestyle to the way he conducts and manages his home. From there, David now shifts his focus toward his public life and how he deals with other people that he encounters. I hope that we would be able to relate with David in trying to ask the Lord to help us in private victories and public victories in our lives so that we can maintain a healthy and dynamic relationship with God. We must continue on in our devotion to seek Him and the desires of His heart so that our lives can be as fruitful as it can be for the glory of God. Starting from Psalm 101:3b until Psalm 101:4 , we would see what David promises that he would do with regard to the relationships that he builds with others around him and the Scripture says: "The deeds of faithless men I hate; they will not cling to me. Men of perverse heart shall be far from me;

I have something wonderful to share about how amazing the true living God, our God who is the Father of Jesus Christ who redeemed us from sin and death because He loves us. Last night, I was eagerly preparing for a report that I was to present today and at that point I had not finished reading the references and materials that I gathered to give a detailed presentation in my class. I actually was not able to read everything about my topic but I simply prayed to God that whatever His will is for me that may it be done in my life. I asked for His wisdom to understand my topic and the courage to express what I know through words. I asked that He help me to say the right words and to connect the dots. I trusted God that whatever was going to happen today, I can rely and lean on Him that He will carry me through it and that He will give me the needed understanding and composure to deliver my report well in the class. So when I got up this morning, I prayed again to God for His gu

Today, we continued with the series regarding the different attributes of Jesus Christ and how we can be more like Jesus in our way of living and especially concerning our relationship with God. As Christians, we need to develop, grow, and mature in our walk with God because that is the manifestation of the changes that God does in our life. Having a deep connection with God enables us to be used more effectively by Him for the furtherance of the kingdom and for His glory to be revealed through our faith and our actions. And the way for us to communicate with God and to be nurtured by Him is through prayer. Jesus, in the time that He spent here on earth, always maintained His communication with God the Father through prayer. The Bible tells us in Luke 5:16 that Jesus often withdrew from the crowds to lonely places so that He can pray and ask God what His will is for Him in those moments and where He wants Him to go. Jesus' attitude in prayer was more intentional than s

When I was a kid, I always listened to the Christian music that my father played in the car. Until now, I remember some lyrics that I heard from one of the songs then which befits the topic of this post and the song said: "Oh, be careful little eyes what you see! Oh, be careful little eyes what you see! For the Father up above is looking down in love, Oh, be careful little eyes what you see!" The message of the song is pretty simple but it uncovers such a profound concept that could actually change our lives for the better. We know that we perceive the things around us through our senses and through these sensory experiences, we are able to derive observations, inferences, and conclusions that we can use to apply in our lives as theoretical or practical knowledge. Basically, whatever we see, hear, smell, touch, and taste can have a great impact in the way we live and the environment that we live in can greatly affect our development and our perspectives in life as we

The next two vows that David made in Psalm 101 both concerned living in the path of righteousness and leading his family as well to serve the Lord wholeheartedly and seek Him in all things. Of course, David did not keep these vows all the time and though he was a great military leader and a fearless warrior in the battlefield but he had a difficult keeping his home in tact. But we should not treat David's mistakes as a license for us to do them but as lessons from which we can learn so that we would not stumble and fall. Remember that our model in life is Jesus Christ and it is He whom we should follow. Nonetheless, these are some points in which we can ask God to help us change in our lives. Psalm 101:2 says: "I will be careful to lead a blameless life - when will you come to me? I will walk in my house with a blameless heart." In other versions of the Bible, the verse tells us that David stated that he will behave wisely in a perfect way and that he wil

About two months ago, our pastor gave a message regarding certain vows that as Christians we can commit to or ask God to help us with so that we can have a deeper relationship with Him. Also, so that we can truly experience the victorious Christian life that God wants us all to have. We used the passage of Scripture found in Psalm 101 where David uttered several "I will" statements and made certain commitments to God so that his life would be well-spent and used fully for the glory of God. I would like to focus on the very first vow that David makes with the Lord because this was a vow that he really committed to despite the struggles he had with his relationship with God and with his family and the persecution that he endured from his enemies and even by his own people. I think that it would benefit all of us Christians that, in any aspect of our lives and in our walk with God, we praise and worship Him in all circumstances and situations that we get ourselves into.

Let us face it, there have been times in our lives that we have grumbled and complained about the mediocrity of our lives. We have pointed fingers on others concerning our mishaps, even hoping that they change their ways so that our lives would be better. But have we stopped and thought about what could possibly be the reasons why we cannot seem to progress from our meager and lackluster state of poverty? Have we looked deep inside for our own attitudes or habits that hinder us from experiencing a good life? Most of us, I believe, would want to be able to make an impact in our respective countries or societies, to replace the faulty system of government that prevails in society, to break down the restrictive norms and prejudices that society tries to enforce on people, to oust the oppressive forces and authorities that rule in our nations and in the end, to change our world and make it a better place to live in. But I believe that this would be very difficult to do even if

Letting go seems somewhat of a cliche coming from me since I have always been urging and motivating people to let go of the burdens that hold them back from experiencing the totality of a full and meaningful life. I even wrote an article about it three years ago and if you search the archive, you would still find it there. But what I failed to emphasize in that post was the part about surrendering whatever heaviness or burdensome thought or struggle that worries you to God. You may have heard this phrase before already, I certainly have it ringing in my ears every time worry or anxiety starts to creep in but many of us crumble under pressure, as I certainly have before, and we lose focus on God and we start concentrating on how to solve our problems and worse, we torture ourselves for being incapable to address them and solve them completely. In the end, as a last resort, we cry out to God in prayer and desperately ask Him to help us and bring us out of the pit hole that we g

Let me address the rapidly intensifying problem that families in this generation face frequently even up to uncontrollable levels: teenage rebellion. I want to share how my parents dealt with it when I started to show signs of angst and frustration against them and how Jesus played a pivotal role in changing my attitude and perspective on my parents. Today, I realized the magnitude of dealing with problems in the home especially concerning children but more specifically teenagers who are starting to be exposed to the reality that the world is a very menacing place filled with vices, distractions, addictions, and all sorts of bad influences that dissuade them from making prudent judgments in taking the right course of action. I am shocked after reading the news that a 17-year-old teenager beat his grandmother to death after being scolded by her when she fetched him from the computer shop. One tidbit that I am currently taking notice is that the boy was playing the popular game