Miah Learns to Write

Proverbs 4:23 "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." As I have mentioned in other posts, the heart of man and the sin that entangles it are the root causes of the issues that we have today, even from the very beginning, and no amount of external modification can transform our inner being to become pure and righteous. The Bible tells us that the heart of man is deceitful above all things and God Himself describes the inclinations of man's heart to be evil all the time. So what does it mean then to guard our heart? First, I would think it appropriate to define what the heart here refers to. Obviously, it's the core of our being and not simply the seat of our emotions rather it encapsulates the mind (our intellect), the emotions, and the will. The desires of the heart are what drive our actions. In Luke 12:34 , Jesus tells us that where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. Whatever we value most, whatever we think about most

" Seek first to understand, then to be understood. " Sean Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens Empathy. This is the word used to describe the idiom "putting yourself in another person's shoes." Many people today have slumped into depression. Many are lonely, discouraged, grumpy, and frustrated because they feel misunderstood by the rest of the world. Teenagers would probably have the feeling that no one understands them or cares for them. I have also found myself in this situation before and I think that is because we lack empathy, not for ourselves but for others. Instead of understanding other people first, we tend to look at our own condition and wallow in self-pity. I believe Sean Covey was correct when he said that we must first seek to understand and then to be understood. Instead of focusing on our own problems, I think it is better to help shift our attention away from ourselves and try to help others with their problems. Galatians 6:2  t

For sixteen years, I had always thought that I was a Christian because my parents told me that I was a Christian and we wrote a couple of times on paper, so I began to believe that I was truly a Christian. I went to church with my parents every Sunday and I attended Sunday school in the early years. I had prayed each night before I slept and each morning when I woke up. I gave thanks to God before eating. I did all this for sixteen years and found out that the name I wore was, well, merely that - a name. I never really lived and experienced how it was to be a Christian. I never experienced the joy and excitement in serving the Lord. Most of the time, I was hesitant to raise my hands in worship to God because I was afraid of what other people might think of me. I was more interested in defending my faith rather than sharing the gospel. Jesus was with me but He was not dwelling in me. Until God finally opened my eyes to the truth, and I realized that being Christian was not any

For the past two weeks, I am grateful and blessed to have been part of a wonderful mission trip with some of the coolest, funniest, and awesome people that I had the pleasure to meet. Most of all, I thank God for giving me an experience of a lifetime, one that has allowed me to see His mighty work firsthand being fulfilled in the lives of students. God has been faithful and continues to work in our lives and I just felt humbled and privileged that God had given me this opportunity to share the gospel to different kinds of people and to see them excited and eager to receive Jesus in their lives. It has been such a spiritual joy ride because I really felt the guidance and protection of the Holy Spirit throughout our journey in the mission field. I saw how God broke barriers and how true it is that God always has the best plan even though our plans may have setbacks, His timing is always perfect. Wherever God leads us to go, I have learned that He has already been working and pr

It feels wonderful to do good to others, to give charity to the needy, to spread the love to our friends and family, and to bring joy into their hearts, but it is quite difficult for many of us to do good to those who do not deserve it like the people who have betrayed us and stabbed us hard in the back or those people who persecuted and cursed us. I tell you, sometimes we are tempted to feel angry or bitter against those people who have wronged and hurt us. In those times, we feel pity on ourselves and we might even rouse others to feel the same way we do against those people. But as Christians, Jesus commands us to do otherwise and instead of seeking vengeance against those who have hurt us, we must repay them with kindness and love. Hatred, grudge, and bitterness are not from God. They are from Satan and these negative feelings become stumbling blocks for many Christians. They become hindrances from experiencing God's blessings and abundance in life. Before I accepte

As Christians, we know that it was by God's grace that we have been saved through Jesus Christ. Grace is the undeserved favor that comes from God. It is a gift that we can never earn nor demand from God but He freely gives it to us. God's grace, however, does not give us the license to go on sinning but as the Bible says it teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and the sinful nature. It is by His grace that we can live a victorious, fruitful, and righteous life for God. It is by His grace that we are changed and become new creations in Jesus. We are freed from the bondage of sin and are no longer condemned. Now, think about God's amazing grace and how much He has freely given it to us so that we can live a full and meaningful life. His grace abounds us each day that we live for Him. If you can make a list of everything that God has blessed you with and has been gracious to you about, then think about how good, merciful, and faithful God has been to you.

There have been moments in my life when I became so engrossed by the busyness of my life that I spent little to no time with God. Losing focus on God diminishes the enthusiasm, energy, and the freshness of every single day. When we start to become entangled with the routine and habits of the world, our lives become so dull and pointless and without meaning or purpose. In these times, God set me back on the right track by allowing certain problems slip into my life that I cannot handle alone. There were times when God brings us to a point of desperation and total lack that we respond by turning to Him. There were times when God gets me out of my comfort zone and leads me into a hostile place where I have no one to turn to but Him. There were times when I lost those insignificant desires and possessions that I held more dear to my heart than my relationship with God. It was also in these times that I broke down before God and asked Him to forgive me and help me to align my life

The moment that we accepted Jesus Christ into our hearts, many things started to change. Our lives have been renewed and will continue to be transformed by the Holy Spirit so that we might become Christlike. At that moment, our sins were forgiven and washed by His blood, we received salvation and eternal life through our faith in Jesus. We gain the right to be called a child of God and a joint heir with Christ, and much more benefits have been bestowed upon us. That said, we also become Jesus' followers or disciples and being His follower means that we must strive to live the life that He modeled for us and to obey the commands He gave us. Jesus told His disciples that, " If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself , take up his cross, and follow me ." To be a Christian or a Christ follower, we must surrender our lives to Him and make Him not just our personal Savior but our Lord as well who would take control over our lives and direct our paths. Now,

Lately, if you have been reading my previous posts, you would notice that I have been so captivated and enamored to share God's love and to be vocal about God's love that Jesus embodied. When Jesus entered into the world, He performed numerous miraculous signs among the people, and genuinely cared for those who were hurting, broken, and desperate, and He gave them hope and salvation through His death and resurrection. There is no doubt that the immensity of God's love for us transcends all boundaries. He just loves us so much and He showed His love for us by sending His Son to die for us and to save us in so doing. If you choose to believe in Him and receive Him, you would experience God's love in ways your eyes have not seen before. God brings tremendous change and revival through His love that nobody is the same ever again. If you choose to believe what the Bible has testified and what countless more people have witnessed and lived to tell their story - the r

Whenever we talk about worship in its purest sense, we not only refer to the songs that we sing or the time we gather together in church to sing these songs but rather worship should transcend the borders of a mere ritualistic or ceremonial activity that we do just because we have to do it or else God would stop blessing us and all sorts of bad things would happen in our lives. One line from the song " Clear the Stage " says that worship is more than just a song and it speaks of the truth because worship should be a lifestyle for us and not merely an obligation or duty that we have to do as a routine or part of a program. Worship should come forth out of our love for Jesus; God's love should overflow in our lives to the point that we merely break into tears and express our devotion for Him as we stand in His presence with utmost reverence to the point that you would be rendered speechless. It does not matter what language we use or what words we use to express tha

How do we know when someone loves us genuinely and deeply without any hint of self-interest or any hidden motivations behind the kindness and love they show us? In most romantic movies and shows we see today, it is very common to see the characters getting hurt and broken after being dumped by the one whom they thought was the One. When they gave their whole heart out to the other person, shared their most intimate personal secrets with them, spent every waking moment with them, and ultimately trusted them, then later getting dumped left a big gap in their hearts. I believe that the desire to find true love in life is innate in all of us. We are so eager to have someone fill our every need, someone whom we can exert all our effort and energy to, and someone who can give us joy that nothing else in the world could ever give. So we go on a frantic search for "Mr. or Ms. Right" to the point that we jump at every opportunity of love, only to find out in the end that we

Have you been going through some difficult circumstances lately? Maybe you have bills to pay but have no money for them. Maybe you just broke up with someone and it hurts so much that you feel lost and without hope. Maybe you have no one to lean on. Maybe you have troubles within the family and it affects you deeply to see your parents quarreling or your children rebelling. Maybe you failed quite a number of times in life. Whatever circumstances you are facing right now, I want to tell you that you can choose to be victorious over them. Several months ago, I was reading a book titled Never Be A Victim Again  by Don Clowers and he speaks of how we cannot control what happens in our lives and there will always be bad moments or failures that we have to go through however we do have control over how we respond to these situations. The world we live in is a treacherous world and to be honest, the things that happen to us are often unfair. There are times that bad things happen to p

One important lesson I learned from my discipleship training was the concept of spiritual breathing . This is a very good practice to get into the habit of doing in your life and helps you to release whatever burden or heaviness you feel inside brought about my guilt, worry, or any kind of fear that entangles your heart. Spiritual breathing is a discipline that comprises of two parts which are similar to physical breathing. The first part is exhaling  which tells us to confess whatever sins we have committed knowingly and even those that we have unconsciously done to God and humbly accept that you have sinned against Him and ask for His forgiveness and mercy. In confessing our sins to God, I think Psalm 139:23-24 gives us a guide on how we can approach God regarding this: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." There are times when we know we have d

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

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

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