PARADISE OR BUST

I used to be so cynical and didn't want to hear anyone talking about God. I thought it was lame.  I didn't understand the Bible so I just got frustrated and stopped.  I said to myself it is easier to be bad than good.  Good is boring and we put in too much effort.  But when trials came along, I felt guilty about calling on God because of my cynicism, why would He even want to listen to me now?  So I had no other choice but to look around me for guidance.  Yes, there were people who cared, people with advice but I quickly realized that they were not as sympathetic with me because they're also human with problems like mine, maybe even worse.  I continued to live this cycle over and over.  I likened it to God trying to send me a rescue helicopter while I was a castaway in a deserted island and I kept refusing to get board to be rescued.


I am positive that this happens to the best of us, perhaps I was not the only one who feels this way from time to time.  What was disheartening at the time was that I was stubborn and wasted my time needlessly worrying about life and the future when the future was already written for me and whether good or bad things happen, there is really nothing we could do but to live our lives for God so that our unwritten life in heaven would be available for us eternally!  Which life would you rather choose?

Until my next rant…. LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

A TIMELESS LOVE LIKE NO OTHER

Two thousand and thirteen years ago, a child was born in a manger.  This was no ordinary baby.  He was the one promised long ago by God, who was the power above ALL, the catalyst to finally reconstruct our broken relationship with Him.  This was Their plan all along.  By “Their” I mean the Three God-Heads.  The “Eloh” (GOD) “im” (plural) God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  All Persons.  

At times I muse on why God the Son was picked to be the unfortunate Godhead to come down and be subjected to the ignorance of the human race?  As a human being and a Christian, I am not worthy to question my all powerful Lord but He understands my heart.  In the Old Testament, God showed proof that He is real.  I mean a sea parting?  A crazy old man building a giant boat?  I can hear their sneers in my own imagination right now!  The people must have called him a kook, a prepper, scroll thumper, etc. just like Christians today are called all kinds of hateful names.  

However, with much understanding as far as my human intelligence can reach, it was for these reasons that the Godheads decided to send God the Son as a sacrifice for the final curtain call on us heathens.  I say heathens because we all ARE heathens.  Anyone who says he or she is not a sinner, just sinned.  I have no course to judge anyone, however, because I believe a sin is a sin is a sin.  Your sin resolution is between you and God.  Not between you, God, and everyone else including me.

God promised the people of the Old Testament that a child will be born and his name is Immanuel which means “God with us”.  Do you know that even after Jesus was born those heathens were still plagued in unbelief?  Thousands gathered round to see His beatings, humiliations, and persecution but still only a percentage of them believed?  

As a human being I could just raised my hands and say, fine, I quit. YOU ALL DIE! Boom!  Plagues and floods and fires!!!  But that’s me, I’m human.  I am not God.  That is why God works in the humblest of all ways, beyond ALL human comprehension.  He does not force us to care.  To care about something as fundamental as our soul.  He wants us to come to Him with all our hearts, with all our might.  He wants us to love Him with a passion that is only for Him.  That is why He sent something, someone as precious as HIS SON, an equally powerful GODHEAD, not just some angel from his staff.  His ONLY Son.  Jesus.  The One who gave up His own life to save those who LOVE Him, with only one request, one commandment.  LOVE ONE ANOTHER.  

Two Thousand and thirteen years ago.  

Until my next rant... You know what to do.

LET YOUR GOOD BE REVEALED

I am a firm believer in the innate good in everyone.  I refuse to accept that one person could be pure evil.  We were all born with a clean slate and as we progressed, the scale of good and bad begin to stack up.  Parental discipline, affection, and love stack the positive side and is conditioned to cultivate good morals, sympathy, compassion, and even love for other human beings.  On the other hand, unconventional practices influenced by peers who were not stacked the the same tend to fill up the negatives.  It is paramount to each child to be conditioned to cultivate his or her strong morals, parental guidance, spiritual teachings of their familial foundation in order to be able to fend off the negative throughout their lives.  

This is by no means an easy task for any young parent.  Physical strength and discipline, although just as important, is second only to good moral, emotional or spiritual character.  It is a great responsibility for one, to, before planning to become parents, know and perfect these ideals because a successful human race is dependent on these fundamental elements.  Good decision making and responsible contributor to the community are what I see rampantly decaying within this new generation.  It saddens me to realize that the very fiber that forms a strong family these days are no longer a priority.  If only  God and His divine teachings were made the center of every family, short of human perfection, it would make for a little less chaos and a more valuation of human lives, human relationships and spiritual strength.

That being said, it is not too late for anyone.  It does however, take a little more work, a little more love, a little more patience and a whole lot of prayers.  But it can be done.  You see, our government, teachers, counselors, community are not responsible to fix the broken, it starts in the home and his or her connection to his or her roots that can successfully do the job.  I guarantee that no matter how much the physical is dolled up,  the inside will eventually make an appearance.  Let us cultivate the good from inside. It is there in every one of us just waiting to come out.

Until my next rant.... LOVE ONE ANOTHER AND HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!  

BEAUTY

Beauty.  The very essence of physical attraction.  Physical beauty holds a certain power in this world of ours.  We use beautiful people for motivation everyday.  There is beauty all around us.  Beautiful people have been known to get away with a lot more than ordinary  or plain lookers.  It is ingrained in each of us since the beginning of time.  Beautiful women drive even the most powerful men to their knees and sometimes even to their demise, physically or morally.  It is a powerful venom that could end up in the hands of an evil heart and send destruction in anything that crosses their path.

Ahhh, yes.  Beauty.  There is, however, an end to the enamoring physical beauty as it may last for sometime but there is another kind that lasts a lifetime and that is inner beauty.  The thing is, when physical beauty is at its peak and inner beauty is not being cultivated at the same time, by the time the outer beauty fades, it is difficult to achieve inner beauty.

You see, we are all beautiful in our own way.  I have met a number of not so beautiful people and by the time I got to know them, I find that the beauty of their hearts emanate and shine through.  Not only was I inspired by their atonement with their inner attractiveness, I aspired to be like them.  Somehow, someway, the outer shell no longer mattered as there was a beautiful aura that envelopes them.

But how wonderful would it be if a person who was not only beautiful outwardly, but inwardly at the same time?  I bet they could influence anyone they wanted to influence with little or no effort.  Imagine the alternative.  A not so attractive person with an even less attractive heart.  So you see for me, it is better to have a beautiful heart that shines inside out rather than have a superficial shine on top of an ugly heart.  The latter having to take way too much effort to achieve.

Till my next rant.... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

DEATH OF A SEED

How marvelous a humble seed is to hold in its hard shell an embryo containing life?  Do you ever wonder how life usually starts this way?  There is a relationship of a humble seed to the way our world is sustained.  From a shell, which is normally round, like the shape of the earth, like the shape of a mother’s belly before a child is born, human or animal.   Whatever it may be, it carries a life within its protective shell.   The shell sacrifices itself to protect and feed the embryo within so that its life can thrive, grow and continue the cycle of life.  The cycle of life is also a circle, and just like our lives, all of us move in circles or cycles.

The shell of a seed dies proverbially and sacrifices itself for the life of the embryo.  It reminds me of the death of Jesus on the cross sacrificing His life, to sustain ours, to feed ours, so that we may thrive in our lives.   The very essence of His death breathed life into ours and maintains the balance that we need in order to survive and grow into a beautiful life while we soak in the sustenance that will allow our spirits to achieve righteousness (proclaiming that Jesus is THE Lord and Savior) to enable us to enter God’s kingdom.  Everything is relative to this revelation.  Every one of us is a seed that sprouted from Jesus’ sacrifice but if the new growth does not allow the spiritual food that is necessary to grow, those seedlings will die.  It is not difficult to let God in, He is waiting by the door for you to allow Him in your life.

Until my next rant...  LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

LET THE HOLY SPIRIT TEACH YOU

For those of you who read or have read the Bible, do you ever wonder like I do why from Genesis to the Book of Revelation, everything points to Jesus?  Do you ever wonder why this book was even written or why it has been the National Best Seller of all time?  I haven’t read the entire book from cover to cover but whenever a message points to a bible verse, it never ceases to amaze me.  Every phrase, every verse, chapter and story to me is mind-blowing.  Each purposefully cements and confirms the truth about the link between eternal life and Jesus Christ.  Perhaps like me you have asked yourself what am I here for? Or what happens to me after I die a physical death?

God didn’t create Adam and Eve with the intention to fill the earth with humans created in His image and decide to make them imperfect so He can fix us!  That would be so silly of someone as powerful as He is.  He created us to be righteous people like Him and loved us enough so we were given free will. However, satan whom he also created decided that he wanted to be the god so he hit God where it hurt, getting His new creations, Adam and Eve to defy Him just as he did.  So now God is compelled to take His children back.  But because of free will, it did not come as easy for Him because He is not the type of God who forces us to love Him back.

Enter Jesus.  His one and only Son.  The greatest sacrifice any father could ever make for the sake of us heathens.  The death of His only Son, no less.  Not just a beating, or bullying, it was death.  It was death because through Jesus’ physical agony and eventual death, satan’s reign would end.  The story isn’t over folks.  When Jesus died, the Bible could’ve ended right there.  No. It. Didn’t.  Because it is only the beginning.  The beginning of us turning away from our sinful nature, being twice born, becoming righteous.

Righteousness is often misinterpreted as doing the right thing.  It is the biggest misconception of all to think that doing wrong is bad and doing good is righteous.  This misconception is hard to understand when you have not yet allowed the Holy Spirit of God to enter your hearts so He can teach it to you.  I certainly can’t no matter how I try until I am blue in the face.  The HSofGod is the only one that can convict you to do so.  But here goes...  There is nothing worse than doing “good deeds” thinking that somehow when we die God puts our bad deeds on one side of a scale and our good deeds on the other side of the scale and depending on which side is heavier determines whether we go to heaven or hell.  If it was this easy, then what was Jesus’ death for?  What would have been the purpose of our God to allow His precious and only Son to suffer in agony and sacrifice His life for us if there was already a system in place?  It doesn’t make any sense, right?  The biggest, greatest sin in God’s eyes is unbelief.  Not believing that Jesus died on the cross so that we could have salvation.  

So you ask, what was the purpose of Jesus’ death then?  What did He do when He saved us? He changes what we are 2 Corinthians 5:17 This means anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person.  The old life is gone; a new life has begun! The moment you believe on Him, God puts a new nature in your heart, a radical change that people will stand aghast in such a change.  Plus, He forgives what we’ve done.  Every smear, stain and blemish is wiped clean.  Then He gives us what we need (Romans 4:5-6) But people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners.  David also spoke of this when he described the happiness of those who are declared righteous without working for it. Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight.  yes what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin. What do we need?  We need righteousness, God puts righteousness on our account even without works! 

When we are compelled by the Holy Spirit to help others who are less fortunate than us, that is what moves us to act upon it but it doesn’t mean that sort of human goodness be translated into righteousness.  Righteousness is believing that Jesus Christ is our savior  and relying on that belief (faith) to prompt us to become good Christians.  The only sin that causes eternal death and damnation is unbelief.  All the other sins are sins we have committed because we are born sinners and no matter how much we try to scrub ourselves clean, through forgiveness, we can never be throughly cleansed from them because that is who we are.  But understanding our salvation and becoming righteous through the teachings of the HSofGod, you are now heaven bound, for you there is no condemnation and you no longer belong to the tribe that follows satan.  Put your hand over your heart and feel your heartbeat.  That is the only thing that separates you from eternal damnation.  Choose wisely.

Until my next rant.... LOVE ONE ANOTHER AND BELIEVE THAT JESUS IS YOUR SAVIOR THEN LET THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD TEACH YOU HOW TO BE RIGHTEOUS!