Smiling with God...

“While Peter was wondering abut the meaning of the vision, the men sent by Cornelius found out where Simon’s house was and stopped at the gate. They called out, asking if Simon who was known as Peter was staying there.” Acts 10:17-18 This event is just proof of how God really works everything together. Here, God was preparing the way for the non Jews to be welcomed into the Kingdom through Jesus. God was ready to take the message to the world. And what is really interesting is that there was a lot of things that needed to come together in order for this to happen. God needed a faithful gentile to bring Peter over to his place. Then God had to give Peter a reason to go. God intricately weaved plans together so that His glory was shown. This story is amazing in itself. It is a truly great to see God work in such ways. Sometimes I look at stories like these and wonder if they still happen today. I know that God is still working and will continue to work in miraculous ways. But...

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” -Job (Job 1:21) What a statement. This is profound. Despite his circumstances, Job praises the Lord. That takes some real commitment and some real dedication to the Lord to say. I don’t think I can fully appreciate this statement. It must have been a struggle to loose what was pretty much everything, and in those days they did not have like a safety net or like welfare for people to go to. If you lost everything then it is exactly that, you lost everything. It is a weird time in my life for this verse to come along. I am in the midst of a financial hardship with really no relief in sight and bills coming down my throat. It’s not like it is going to get any easier too. However, it is difficult to get to the end of the maze, when every time you make a turn, on what you think is for the better, it turns out to be a dead end. It is ...

”I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed in to eternal dwellings.“ Luke 16:9 Interesting passage. Here Jesus states it is okay to make money if you use it for eternal practices. At leas that is what one commentary says. But it makes total sense. Why not use money to gain important results? Why must shouldn’t we use money to gain eternal wealth. The whole passage is about stewardship. But it is also about how we need to use the resources to gain friends. The important thing is to gain friends. Go save the world, that is what the passages means. God gives resources of any type for you to steward. Use it to go save people and save the world. Do things right, but be creative in what you do. This is an awesome verse. Jesus states take every angle and go for it. Look at how to accomplish something and just go for it, and do it as wisely as possible. Use all the available resources at your disposal so that the...

“I know, O Lord, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps. Correct me, Lord, but only with justice- not in your anger, lest you reduce me to nothing.” Jer. 10:23-24. So I guess I am not the only one. Here Jeremiah openly confesses that he at times tries to direct his own steps. Kind of weird considering that this guy had a constant direct connection with God. He was living in the “end times” of Judah. He was given prophecy to speak, direct answers from the God, and all the fixings of being a spiritual leader at that time, but still he had problems with a small problem called “control”. Personally I like being in control. You feel as if you have a say, you have some sort of bearing of what is going on, and most of all you feel like you are in command. Kind of like Captian Kirk on the star ship Enterprise, or like Han Solo in Star Wars. They were the Captian of the ship and don’t let anyone tell them otherwise. There is a sense of power, comfort,...

“They worshiped the Lord, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought. To this day they persist in their former practices. They neither worshiped the Lord nor adhere to the decrees and ordinances, the laws and commands that the Lord gave the descendants of Jacob, whom he named Israel.” 2 Kings 17:33-34 After a hostile take over, a deportation, and another warning from God, the Israelites still did not listen. The continued in their ways. The word that stuck out though that was used in this translation, was that the word persisted. Persist in the dictionary means “continue stead fast or firmly in some state.” Another definition says it means “to last or endure tenaciously.” Here the Israelites instead of turning back to god, they continued stead fast in their ways and endured it with tenacity. Here their persistence worked against them. If they applied the same energy of persistence to pursue the Lord with a...

“You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride; you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. How delightful is your live, my sister, my bride! How much more pleasing is our love than wine, and the fragrance of your perfume than any spice!” Song of Songs 4:9-10 In the book of Song of Songs, Solomon gives us a very graphic, visual, and stirring description of what a God centered love relationship with a man and a woman can look like. Make no mistake about it, this is not an analogy of God's love for man, this book is purely a love relationship between a man and a woman.  It is very passionate, exciting, erotic, and at the same time, it is intimate, gentle and sweet. Which I wouldn’t expect anything less, being that an awesome God created love and sex. To have this kind of passion for another person is not only good, but it is very good. Yesterday I was at McDonalds eating my Kung Fu Panda Happy Meal, and I herd behind me a couple sittin...

“As water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects the man.” Proverbs 27:19 Though this verse is simple it reveals a wonderful truth about all men. Our hearts are very much reflective of who we are. Here Solomon wisely says that if you examine the heart of a man you will see what he is really like. Here he is describing the inner soul, the inner sanctuary, the inner most part of him. That is where the real person is. Past the disguises that each person puts up, you dig deeper you will find what really makes this person. My nieces are back in town, so you know what that means, I am watching more and more Disney movies. But a couple of nights ago I was forced to watch a movie Mulan again, and again. About the 3rd time I was watching it, something caught my attention. The song that Mulan sings, “When will my reflection show who I am inside.” What caught me was that what she was seeing was not what she wanted to be. So when I read this verse here what I see sometimes the refle...