GOOD AND RIGHT IN THE EYES OF GOD

 

As a follower of Christ, we are expected to do the right thing in His eyes and be faithful to Him. Everyone is called to worship God in response to His goodness and grace. What preoccupies our hearts matters to God. Our desires should be based on what He has to offer and foundation of His will. 

 

Take Asa (2 Chronicle 14:7-1-7) as an example. He did what was good in the eyes of God. He was the 3^rd king of Judah. His forefathers were wicked kings and built altars of foreign gods all throughout Judah. But he destroyed everything that his father established for a long time to pursue God and made an extraordinary choice- to follow and obey what he has called to do.

 

Idols today, come in many enticing shapes. It might be money, business, job and relationships, and they get a hold of us. They control us in so many ways. Our ambitions and dreams are hooked to these things and become our gods. These become our priority and putting God aside. 

 

There is nothing wrong with having a desire for these things but when we worship all these, this takes God from His righteous place.

 

By nature, we are self-centered beings .We make decisions based on how we feel rather than on what God says.  This makes our worship superficial. Worship is not something that we only do in church; it is something that we plant in our hearts on a daily basis. That is why it is essential to completely surrender our lives to God and consistently ‘die to self’. In this way, He who is all-powerful can help us set aside the thing that this world has to offer and focus on the One who deserves our worship.

 

We should identify the idols in our lives and eliminate them. In light of the Scripture, we should have a regular time of personal worship and complete obedience to the Word. This will always keep us on guard.

 

When we worship God and wholeheartedly follow Him, this brings pleasure to God and makes Him smile. In reward of obedience to God, He is willing to give us peace and prosperity in everything that we will do.

KNOWING JESUS

Affirming that we know God is a basic thing as a Christian. Getting to know Jesus in a deep and personal way is another thing. Christians know Jesus, and other people might say they know Jesus as well. But the question is, how well do we know him?

Developing a relationship with someone requires a commitment of time and energy. So it is with your relationship with Jesus Christ; it takes time to learn some of the basic principles of the Christian life. 

 The greatest desire of the noble men in the bible like Paul, David and Moses was to know Jesus. 

In Philippians 3:10, Paul stated; “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death”.

Paul testified that he wanted to understand Jesus better. He wanted to have intimate knowledge of God—knowing Him more and more.

In Psalm 27:4, “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” David denoted that we should all continuously desire and grow more in love with God.

As we grow spiritually, we thirst and hunger for an intimate relationship with Jesus. However, it takes a heart of sincerity to have the yearning to learn about Jesus and to intensify relationship with Him. 

As Paul’s example, he desired for the presence of God that’s why he obeyed the Law. Sadly, some Christians think that abiding by the rules is being intimate with God. In Matthew 15:8, people, specifically the Pharisees were so legalistic and just focused on externalism. It’s like merely following a set of rules and it is considered as “legalism”—and God treat this as an insincere act. But God does not tolerate superficial relationship.

11)      THAT I MAY KNOW HIM...  (Philippians 3:10a)

From the time that we committed ourselves to God and surrendered our lives to Him, we became naturally thirsty about knowing about Him further because of His goodness.

But, did we know that it’s possible to be a Christian and not really know God? When the Bible talks about knowing God, it’s not referring to a mere intellectual exercise. Knowing God does not mean knowing facts about God. To know God is not just reciting His biblical resume or hearing testimony of what He has done in someone else’s life. Knowing God involves encountering Him and finding out that He is who He says He is. (John 14:8-9).

22)      THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION …  (Philippians 3:10b)

Paul stated that he wanted to understand Jesus better. He wanted to understand and experience the power found in Jesus' resurrection. He wanted to understand and experience the fellowship found in Jesus' sufferings. In trying times, that we used to think that there is no more hope left for us. But God has the power to give life and nothing is impossible to Him. God has given us the victory so we can have hope--Christ resurrection power.

33)      THE FELLOWSHIP OF HIS SUFFERING… (Philippians 3:10c)

Being made conformable to his death - In all things, being just like Christ - to live as he did, and to die as he did. There can be no doubt that Paul means to say that he esteemed it so desirable to be just like Christ, that he would regard it as an honor to die in the same manner. He would rejoice to go with him to the cross, and to pass through the circumstances of scorn and pain which attended such a death. Sometimes God uses ‘pain’ as megaphone to awaken us and remind us that God is there whenever we’re focusing on some unnecessary things. Some of us even experienced persecution by pursuing the work of Christ (Matthew 5:11-12).Christians are being condemned by friends, hounded by their own family and insulted by colleagues by being different and not doing the common stuffs that non-believers do. It’s hard to be different because we are social beings and we opt for sense of belongingness. Nonetheless, the Bible commanded us that we should be happy for being so.

Many who know a lot about Jesus but they don’t know Jesus in a personal and intimate way. Let us not be contented with our knowledge of Jesus, but our goal should have the desire to have a more loving relationship with Him always.

I AM A DISCIPLE OF JESUS

           

What does it take to be a Christian?  Are we considered Christian because we confessed our sins and prayed the sinner’s prayer? Christianity has a cost, and that is letting God work mightily in our lives.  It is God’s desire for us to become His Disciple.  A Christian life is not only about accepting Christ as His Savior, but making Christ as His Lord, and consequently becoming His Disciple. Discipleship is costly but to not follow Christ is even more costly.

Many of us today do not understand what it means to be a genuine Christian. There are multitudes that often follow Jesus or claim to be a Christian but we do so on our terms and not His. We do not truly comprehend the biblical definition of discipleship. 

In Luke 9:23, Jesus told His people: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”  This implies that being a Christian does not just end in going to church, praying and reading the bible. There are conditions that we need to adhere to.

Just like the environmental slogan: Reduceà Reuseà Recycle = LostàSavedàDisciple—we, as God’s followers should abide with the commitment that once we live in Christ, should bear in mind the kind of commitment involved is seen further when we consider the "high cost" of discipleship demanded by Jesus in 2 Corinthian 5:17.

THE COURSE: “If anyone would come after me,…” Come after me means, if we are going to be a Disciple of Jesus then we need to follow His course and not our course. We will submit to His terms and not on our terms. We will praise and worship Him in His terms and not our terms. 

THE CONDITION: Deny. There are two things we need to know about the word “Deny”. Deny means IMMEDIATELY, no Buts and Ifs. Remember:  Delayed obedience is disobedience. God does not tolerate excuses to follow His instructions. He wants us to respond instantly no matter what. Deny also means COMPLETELY. It means entirely and not just to cut off.

Jesus has in mind that as His people, His followers, we are to forsake anything that would stand in the way of embracing Christ with our full allegiance.  We are to forsake, possessions, power, favor of men, and human glory.  We must deny our natural bent toward earthly treasures and strive to make Christ our treasure.  Also, in this, we must deny our self-reliance.  We must forsake relying on our abilities and logic.  We must forsake relying on our human sense of righteousness and totally cling to Christ for righteousness, we must live lives that continually accept grace and glorify Christ.

THE COMMAND: “….follow me.”  ( Luke 9:23a) Follow me is not a suggestion. It is imperative, required, necessary. He is calling people out of the crowd to become His follower. His disciples; someone who has such a vital union with Christ that they routinely do what Jesus taught. He’s calling people to step out of the crowd to become one of those extraordinary individuals.

Daniel, as an example was firmed in his faith in Christ, when they (with Meshach, Meshach and Abednego) were ordered by King Nebuchadnezzar to worship the golden image. But they refused and faced the threat of death. Despite the sentence placed upon them by King Nebuchadnezzar, they have yielded their bodies that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God.

Discipleship is a daily discipline and true Christianity is a life that walks under the guidance of the Holy Spirit of Christ (Matthew 28:19-20). The cost of being a disciple of Jesus is extreme; it may cost us everything we have. But it may surely be rewarding on the latter part. It does not assure us a comfortable lives but a task to bear much fruit and ready to be reaped in due time. Christianity is a responsibility and our ultimate responsibility as Christians is not just to preach the gospel, but to live Christ because how we act is how we perceive God in our lives.

What I learned on December 1, 2012

I think I was reminded to write a blog again is because of my not-so-sleepy-yet late night.  What came to worse was, when my fingers are now ready to do some clicks on my keyboard, I realized that my long-time blogspot account was nowhere to be seen. I can’t access it anymore. I panicked and made a decision to still write my blog. 

Two years ago, I started conducting an outreach feeding program for the indigenous children during my birthdays. Growing up in a middle-class family allowed me to encounter a lot of struggles with finances. There are times that putting a meal on our table become one of the challenging portion of our daily life.  

 During last year (2012), preparation for my annual event brought me in frustrations. I had to let the ends meet by settling the schedules of my participants (they are usually my grade school, high school, college classmates, colleagues and friends from my other circles) who have various schedules. One more dilemma was the venue; I was not able to coordinate with a orphanage contact person still and I only have few days to have things done, few people to rely on and limited funds to bring everything into reality. In short, it was….. IMPOSSIBLE.

I started to pray fervently to the Lord and asked for wisdom. I was in the verge of breaking-down, having a thought to back out and just get on with my life which will make it easier for me and for everyone. However, I felt the comfort and sustenance from God.

Everything went well for the last two days. In fact, I was so relaxed and took everything in His hands.  The last day preparation was buying food in the market which I enjoyed with my mom (she supported me all the way and she even cook the food that we will distribute the next day). 

Then, I discovered that my friend- one of my participants; who will give us a ride to the venue, will not make it for some reasons. I panicked. It’s less than 24 hours and I had to deal with the transportation. I was so worried back then because I made a pick up point on the way to the venue to make it easier for the participants and finding out that no one will pick them up is a disaster!

When me and my mom was about to go home, I was still uneasy and keeping my eyes on the road to look for an answer. I felt the serenity and suddenly saw a huge (grandia-type) white van-which was ideal to use for my event.  I imagined how pleasant it would be for all of us to sit in comfortable van. Of course, I want to give my participants the pleasure of sitting in a cozy vehicle. Giving them an awesome ride I thought, will make them want to join my event the next year.

I pointed my nose towards the van and whispered,” Lord, sana ganyan yung van namin tomorrow.”

I tried calling some of my friends to get assistance, unfortunately, no one replied. Oh, one did. But she cannot help me out at that moment because she has to deal with something.

Surprisingly, I slept the night before, without fretting about the van. I planned to wake up very early and have a last-minute scout for a van in the neighborhood. I knocked on every gate with a van parked outside their homes and inquired. The first three neighbors had their vans rented by someone who was ahead of me.

I decided to head back home when I noticed a white van parked in a garage. I was hesitant to knock on the gate, and so I stared at it for a few seconds. When I was reminded that I don’t have much time, I excitedly tap the gate. One thing that amazed me was it was way too early, but everyone in that home was awake, they even came out and talked to me.  The owner of the van gave me a rent fee that is amazingly low.

The event was a success and it was perfectly more than I can ever imagine. We had a wonderful travel experience because God provided a New Toyota Hi Ace Grandia van to keep us restful and safe in our way to and fro the event.  Such an awesome encounter!

Isaiah 41:10

New International Version (NIV)

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

By this verse, I was comforted and reminded me that I should not fret because He will take care of everything and He did.

Matthew 7:11

New International Version (NIV)

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

God is relational at his core. He wants to have a loving relarionship with us and He even cares for our little request. Like my experience with the van, I realized that even my petty desires are being heard by God and is willing to give it to me. At most unexpected time, He answers our prayers. The question is, “Are we ready to receive his answers?” Or “Are we even aware that He answered it?”.

STOLEN IDENTITY

I would like to remind everyone that I am ONLY using 1 8-year-old GLOBE number, 1 SUN business number & 1 Singapore number. I NEVER used any number aside from those 3 & I ONLY have 1 Facebook account. 

  

Several churchmate/family friend & officemate reported that they have been added by another account that was named after me & another account (by the real person) added their family members. One of them told us that my brother --CHARLES DAVID DELIJERO TACDEO, keeps on sending her harassing text messages; that we found out later on was not really my brother. We just discovered that this person (a friend of mine,or so I thought),uses someone else's name to create discord among us. This has caused major conflict in my home. 

Another incident happened last 2012 that was currently investigated; A friend of mine notified me that he will be using a new contact number, and tried to keep in touch with me. After a few exchange of SMS, he started mocking & harassing me by sending me fabricated statements. It also happened the other way around;my friend that I thought I was sending my SMS to, was being harassed too by this scheme.

This IDENTITY THEFT was a friend of mine, she is using our old facebook pictures as a bait to those innocent people that she will be adding on her fake account & add more of my friends to monitor activities & gather information that can be taken against someone. Moreover, she is the one OPERATING my brother's (Charles David Delijero Tacdeo) FACEBOOK ACCOUNT --which she uses to get a hold of someone & be her future victim. 

 Betrayal of a friend is one of the worst thing in the world.

JUST KEEP MOVING

One small creature caught my attention when I unexpectedly dropped in on a pet store in a mall. It is a 2-inch darling inside a four-sided figure goblet is set near the margin tottering bit by bit its way on a stone stature as a flaunt image of the aquarium.

It was a tiny ‘green turtle’.  I found myself strangely staring blankly on that miniature for a few minutes just to appreciate and fascinated by its PATIENT sluggish movement and pay no heed to people who are rummaging the store.  Concentrating on its goal to reach the stone display no matter what.

Which reminded me of PHILIPPIANS 3:13-14;

¹³ Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

As a panicky lass as I am, CALMNESS is an unfamiliar word for me. I used to react to situations awkwardly. I want everything to be on time-table (which usually causes me to be pressured and frustrated). I get terrified if things did not work out as I planned, I have stage-fright and I certainly get block-out when I lose my nerves.  In short, I act foolishly on unforeseen circumstances.

This occurrence strikes a chord on my mind and drives me to FOCUS not on my situation but on my goal (our goal as God’s children) to press on and concentrate on eternal things because at the latter part of everything that is going on right now personally, mentally, emotionally and globally, GOD IS IN CONTROL.

Psalm 46:10

"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

Just like the little turtle, though moving unhurriedly, I should be determined to finish what He has started on me. Like a plant; I should STAND STILL and continue to depend on His TRANQUIL manner of leading me to be a person He planned me to be.

“Just keep moving”

When I think about getting MARRIED...

Marriage makes me think about diapers, crying baby late at night, love quarrel, jealousy, tuition fees for the kids, labor even had a tiring day, scolding a child, picking up and sending a kid in school.

Isn't that quite tiring?

It is still my trance to have an inamorato and cute little munchies in the future, however, thinking about it over, makes me feel so jaded...