Month: February 2017

At our Midweek Prayer Meeting which is Day 4 of our Ten Days of Prayer Series, we talked about the Table of Showbread, a furniture in the Holy Place of the Earthly Sanctuary. The bread points to Jesus who Himself said “I am the Bread of Life. He that comes to Me shall never hunger and he that believes on me shall never thirst.” John 6:35

As the bread was kept ever before the presence of the Lord, so we must eat every day of this bread for our nourishment and strength. The disciples didn’t understand when Jesus said they needed to eat His flesh and drink His blood. Of course He was referring to His words as He explains in verse 63: “It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you, they are spirit and they are life.”

We need to ask God to give us an appetite for the Word of God. For when we regularly partake of this spiritual bread, our character develops and gets formed according to His likeness. And what is more, it helps us in our fight against the devil. The material below shows what happens to the enemy when we get serious with our Bible study.

When you carry a Bible…the devil gets a headache.
When you open it…he collapses.
When he sees you reading it…he faints.
When he sees you living it…he flees.

Let us spend time with the Word. Let us carry one all the time, open and read it everyday and live out its principles in our lives; and let the enemy of our souls get a headache, callapse, faint and finally flee from us.

We work to earn a living and support a family. For some people, they may not have to if they have inherited wealth that could take care of their needs for life. Others stop working after the children are grown and are out on their own. And when sufficient funds have been accumulated to assure a comfortable life through the golden years, what is there to be working for? Of course, when one is in good health and considers work as service to God and fellowman, it is altogether different. One can stay put on the job for as long as he is still productive and useful.

Somewhere down the road though things stop getting exciting. Everyday is a grind and work becomes a drudgery. There is no looking forward with eagerness and anticipation to the workday. Someone did a research and came up with some signs that give the message it’s time for a change. When conditions such as mentioned below exist, you know there’s no more future in the job and every day you stay longer in it is a waste of time. The time has come to change your life. Are you familiar with the following?

1. You dread going to work more days than you don’t.
2. You are living in the past or dreaming about the future
3. People are constantly telling you to relax.
4. You are jealous of other people’s successes.
5. You wake up tired.
6. You are antsy.
7. You gossip.
8. Everyone seems to annoy you.
9. You have a constant sense of foreboding.
10. You keep thinking.

Having the courage to stop and change direction at this point in your life will pay you dividends in terms of your health and happiness. It will be a struggle. You may have to start all over again. It will be an uphill climb. But you will make it with determination and perseverance. In the end, you will find yourself in a better, healthier and more meaningful world.

Whatever you do, do it as though you are doing it for the Lord. And you’ll never go wrong. St. Paul admonishes that we ought to be concerned not with men’s approval but with God’s. “But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which tries our hearts.” (1 Thessalonians 2:4).

Last Sunday was a day full of memorable and spectacular events. The day started with an epic battle for supremacy in the tennis world between Swiss “Maestro” Roger Federer and Spanish “Iron Man” Rafael Nadal at the Australian Open Tennis Championships at Melbourne, Australia. The 5-set match was such a riveting show to watch and when the smoke cleared, Federer was left standing alone, hoisting the championship trophy for his improbable run and unprecedented 18th Grand Slam Title- in effect solidifying his place as the greatest tennis player of all time.

Later in the evening, it was the grand pageant of smart and talented beauties from eighty-six countries in the world competing for the much coveted title of Miss Universe in Manila, Philippines. This event attracted much attention because of what happened at the competition last year when the host, Steve Harvey, proclaimed Miss Colombia who was actually the first runner-up as Miss Universe 2016 instead of Miss Philippines who was the choice of the panel of judges.

When Steve Harvey who was hosting the event once again gave his opening remarks, he referred to the major blunder that he committed the previous year. And he reminded the audience that mistakes that we commit are a thing of the past and we need to just move on after we learn valuable lessons from them. Why Manila was chosen to be the venue for the next pageant may have been a political move to mollify the feelings of the wronged Pia Wurtzbach, the Filipino reigning Miss Universe and the millions of her countrymen that she represented who may have been slighted by the faux pax. In fact in the selection process, it seemed that the organizers tried to make up for the elephantine mistake by having Miss Philippines and Miss Colombia get to the final six and three respectively.

I like the positivity with which the host and the contestants that were offended took it. Pia worked hard to bring the pageant to her country and hoped that the same guy would host again to have the chance to redeem himself. She even came to bring a pair of eyeglasses to Steve prior to reading the results of the judges’ vote “so that he doesn’t make the same mistake” as he did the previous year. Which Steve dutifully put on this symbolizing a desire and determination to be accurate and precise in the proclamation of the results.

The undeclared theme seemed to be that when we make mistakes we should learn from them, leave them behind and move on. In fact this was the basis of the final question that was asked of the final three contestants. Miss France was direct to the point and she told the world what she did as a result of her mistake and made her life all the better for it. I honestly believe this won her the title.

In our spiritual lives, we fail and make mistakes as humans normally do. This is expected. What is important is that we learn from our mistakes and the lessons we learn should make us better persons as we move on to the achievement of our cherished dreams and goals.

St. Paul said, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but [this] one thing [I do], forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 2:13, 14).