Without Hands

I am not even sure what to write about!!  Because there's so much to write about! So instead of writing about me, I am just going to share something!! :)

So Ivor Myers...Ivor Myers.... Ivor Myers...I was introduced to former-hip hop artist now Pastor Ivor Myers by my younger sisters. From facebook statusi (lol?) to spending time in their rooms watching his sermons online on Friday nights, I had to take a listen.

I did. I listened to two of his sermons titled Without Hands (9/3/07) and Weapons of Our Faith (3/9/07). It was obvious that the Lord was using the man to preach the WORD.

CHECK HIM OUT!!

http://www.audioverse.org/people/96/ivor-myers.html?pageNum=1

Other than that, things have been going well on my end. Making sure I don't get sick, and trying to stay on top of my work. So far it's been going well...even though both my phone and computer died and also wouldn't charge. All happened during the same week. No phone. No computer. I didn't know what to do. :-/ But to make a long story short, I now have a phone, and after five years of having my computer, I am thinking that it's a sign to get another one....MERCY. it had to happen now, like right now?

meh. it's all good. I am still all smiles :) God is good? ALL THE TIME!!!  HeLLO somebody!!

" For you have been my hope, O Sovereign LORD, my confidence since my youth."
Psalm 71:5

The Leading Man.

King David. I dedicated this past month to re-reading the books of Samuel (encouraged to do so after hearing a sermon on 1 Samuel 14 awhile back). For the longest, I've always held King Solomon and Joseph as my Top Leading Men of the Bible (aside from [King] Jesus of course :)); however, after re-reading Samuel again, Mr. David made his way up to possibly being my #1 Leading Man (though it may change since I'm back to re-reading Kings....where King Solomon enters the picture again! :)).

Anyways, King David's story is intriguing. Although David is famous for fighting the Giant (Goliath) and for his beautiful psalms, the truth and the reality is I feel as if his unbelievable faith in God throughout his entire life is not emphasized as much as it should, aside from him and Goliath. There's more to David. David, in my opinion appears to have had an 'arrogantly' beautiful and humble soul that deserves a long overdue spotlight. Sounds contradictory? Maybe, but I found arrogantly to be a suiting word for now. Read why. I'll try to make it short, though. Finally, it was obvious that the relationship David had with God was unique.

Check this out:

 1. Faith/Fear of God:

         a. When Little David heard the words of Goliath "defying Israel", instead of losing courage and being terrified like the rest of Israel (1 Samuel 17:11), David responded, "Just who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?" (Verse 26b). Be reminded that David was the youngest of them all.....In other words, David was saying "Are you serious? How can you allow a man like this, who is not even part of the chosen people of the living God, to talk to us like this!? You've GOT to be kidding me!" Solid Deepness #1. [Continue reading the chapter and the book, you'll find more Solid Deepness of his Faith]. [Message to us: If you believe that you serve a Mighty God, show through your words and actions]

2.  Personality

        a. Looking back at his story, I'd say that the reason I would describe his character as being beautiful, would be because of his genuine and respectful personality that resulted from his fear and faith in God. As you may know, it did not take too long for Saul to start envying David's status (Chapter 18 now). King Saul became furious at David because of his accomplishments (in modern day's word, we would call him a "hater" and righteously so). To make a long story short, King Saul spent the rest of his life pursuing David, seeking to kill him. Yet, watch this, when  David had the chance to take revenge and kill Saul,the Bible says "[after cutting a corner of Saul's robe] Afterwards, David's conscience bothered him because he had cut off the corner of Saul's robe. He said to his men: I swear before the Lord; I would NEVER do such a thing to my Lord, the Lord's anointed. [I will never] lift my hand against him, since he is the Lord's anointed" (1 Samuel 24: 4-6). David knew to respect the Lord's anointed (even though, the Lord regretted that He made Saul king over Israel, 1 Sam.5:34). He left King alone. After all, didn't God say "revenge is His?!"  [Message to us: Respect your parents, elders, teachers, people period.  Respect should be required from us, not given based on how we feel. It won't hurt you, I promise. In fact, it will do you MORE good than you think or even expect.]. Solid Deepness #2.

And surely God proved so. If you noticed, after reading the books of Samuel...All of David's enemies--even though he cared about all of them, respected them and didn't even want them to die--the Lord blessed Him by wiping out all his enemies. When God is for you, who can be against you?. I guess instead of a beautiful character some might consider David to be a coward (or weak) now that I think about it...maybe? not in my opinion. I believe all of these were a product of his faith and trust in God.

In addition, because of his humble and genuine character, King Saul's own son (Jonathan) loved David SO much that the Bible said that he loved David even more than he loved his own self. Isn't that powerful? As Christians, Paul advised us to (can't remember the verse) always do the right thing so that no one will find any unjust things to say about us. Solid Deepness #3.

3. "Arrogantly" Beautiful Soul and Faith

      a. Finally to conclude, towards the end of his story, we find David singing praises to the Lord. 2 Samuel 22 (read it first!!). Okay, so I was reading the chapter, I caught myself re-reading verses 22-25. Had a triple take. I couldn't believe it. I was thinking to myself, "How could you boldly say something like that, David? Weren't you the one who slept with someone's wife, then staged his murder so that he wouldn't find out that you impregnated his wife? and and weren't you---" Then I caught myself. ha. Unlike me, apparently, [Praise God I am  not! the Judge], once David sincerely repented, he believed in the power of forgiveness (aka the Power of the Cross). His sins were washed away, never to be found again. He came boldly before the throne of God to obtain mercy and grace. He knew he was a sinner, but he also knew of God's grace and mercy. Solid Deepness #4.

How far is the East from the West? From one scarred hand to the other.....[Casting Crowns]

What can we learn from David? A whoollllle lot. In three sentences: As children of God, our actions and words should testify  our love and faith in our Lord. If we follow  and believe His words, He will never fail us. Don't let your past sins overshadow the Power of the Cross.

Happy Friday!!!

man, I love powerful sermons.....

Last week, I checked out the Spanish church. The message focused on how it is essential that we worship God the way He wants us to, not our way(powerful powerful)! The pastor started from the sacrifices of Cain and Abel and all the way to the New Testament...I promise I will take sometime in the future to summarize it...I have to!!

Today, I checked out the French church....powerful message too...(man. I love sermons if you can't tell.....:)) Buuuuuuuuut before I get there, I HAVE to share the message from vespers last night =)!

At first I was so caught up in how much work I had to do for this upcoming week, that I began to lose motivation and didn't want to go to vespers. Instead, I wanted to stay at the apartment and spend time alone....(lol I know.. when a person is in the process of losing movitation, s(he) should go hang with people so to forget the problem.. and not stay home and dwell on it!! it makes it worse...). Anyways, but my friend called me to pick her up and attend vespers with her. I couldn't say no since I promised earlier that I would go...So I did. It was awesome!!

The Word was given by a student. I am trying to make this blog entry as short as possible. I would always use the names "Jesus" "Saviour" "Lord" so interchangeably that I never paused to think about the meaning of either one of them until....last night. Since I don't have my Bible near me, I can't recall the verse but to sum it up: We often think of Jesus as our Saviour because He came and died for us to save us, but not necessarily as our "Lord" so much. Yes, we're thankful that He saved us, but for many, we feel like we don't need to listen to Him and His  Word...as one with Authority and POWER. Check out the definition of "lord." Jesus is BOTH our SAVIOR AND LORD. We shouldn't look at Him as one and not the other, or the other without the one because we'd be stripping Him of either His sacrifice for us or His authority. Catch my drift? ....if you do, how true is that!?! Before, when I think of the Word, automatically I think of GOD, not necessarily Jesus though I would acknowledge Him as the living Word--an example for us!! (even though He clearly states that He is the Word of Life).... I would subconsciously put Him a little lower than God the Father (well more like I think of Him MORE as a SAVIOR than "our Lord", because you know...God is the Father....Isn't it funny? [We humans can't live without categorizing, organizing things in hierarchies, huh?] I mean think about it: when we pray we pray to the "our Heavenly Father"... We pray expecting Him to grant our wishes THROUGH the Son. But you know, the Son has as much power as the Father...After all, He IS our Judge...right? Well, you don't realize that you're doing something until you're called on it! Couldn't believe that...mind you, I've read the New Testament like a bijillion times...wow. Simple things like that, we tend to take for granted since we've heard/read it so many times, right!?!

But anyways, back to today. So I went to the French church and the pastor focused on this verse: 1 Chronicles 4:10! [Prayer of Jabez] Four main points to summarize:

• Petition: Come to God in prayer and talk to Him like a friend, a father.  

• Benediction (Blessing): Ask God to bless you!! there's nothing wrong with asking God to bless you!!  

• Augmentation: Don't be afraid to ask GOD for things...He told you you can ask and it shall be given unto you!! (as long as you're doing His will, and it is His will...He will shower you with blessings!)

• Protection: Sometimes when we get more, we get carried away (pride, egotism, selfishness etc) so ask Him that He will protect you from evil as you ENJOY His blessings. 

Now that you know I love powerful sermons/messages...if you'd like to share powerful words with me..feel free!!.

Check this: I love this song.

"Labor Day" Weekend....

....more like Labor Weekend. It's only Week 3 and already I am forced to plan my schedule on a hourly basis---which class to focus on when, which assignment to do first, how to do it efficiently and when to move on to the next one. Planning is actually one thing I like to do, but geesh week 3 already? I guess. [[No complaints no complaints...]]. Week 2 of school wasn't too bad. I was able to get everything done on timely quality fashion, but am in definite need to ensure that I get my 8-hrs sleep time, BEFORE midnight. That's the goal for this week. We'll see how it goes. Friday night was pretty awesome.

Every month, there is a vespers service called Fusion (where all the vespers or ministries on services join together to do 'vespers'). The speaker was phenomenal. She was a female pastor from California whose topic was on Matthew 14 starting with Verse 22. She explained these verses in a way that I've never heard before.

Verses 22-23 [when Jesus left his disciples in the ship to go spend time in prayer]:

--> Sometimes you just need your time alone with God, even Jesus needed time alone with God. After constantly being followed by the crowd and his disciples, Jesus needed to just go leave his "homies" and "close buddies" to spend sometime with His father. Quality time with self is important, quality time with self and GOD is essential.

Verses 24-27 when the disciples on the ship began to experience heavy tosses and turns and Jesus DECIDED to show up on the FOURTH watch.

-->Sometimes in life, you're going through so much. It's not like you did anything wrong...you were actually doing God's work.... You call on God. No show. You're trying to work things out and call on God again, this time louder. It's now the third watch. You've tried everything you could. You waited as long as you could. You're this close to give up but you try again..."LORD, PLEASE hear my cry!!".....still no show. You're mad, frustrated, tired, helpless, hopeless. You are this close to given up, THIS CLOSE...but you know He is the only one you can call on and finally you get on your knees and call on HIM....He answers (CP time anyone?) But you know why sometimes he takes ETERNITY TO SHOW UP? Because God wants us--- after trying EVERYTHING you can to solve the situations, finding people to solve the situations and getting to the point of helplessness-- to give ALL the credits when it is all said and done. That's all He wants. Us to recognize his power and glory, because sometimes we forget that He's even there with us. We loooove to take credits for things we had nothing to do with.

Verses 28-29: when Peter tested Jesus.

-->Out of all the disciples only PETER had the audacity to test Jesus. He said "Lord if it is you, command me to walk on water" [SOOOO MUCH TO WRITE HERE BUT] When we feel the calling to do something for the Lord, or we're in a situation when we're not sure what to do, don't be afraid to TEST God and ask him to do the IMPOSSIBLE. you know, everyone can say that they've walked with Jesus but only ONE can say "he walked on water with Jesus"...POWERFUL, no? I definitely think so.

Finally, Verses 30, 31. When Peter doubted and cried out to Jesus.

--> She didn't even bother to mention his lack of faith but rather said]...sometimes when you make it to the middle of the water, (away from the boat and "far" from Jesus) you'll feel LONELY. Don't be afraid to cry out His name. Jesus will come in a second, bend down and reach out to you. It was even more powerful to hear because so many of us, including myself was wondering how the student who just graduated last May from the seminary...How he felt the calling of God to go out and preach the gospel abroad...only to be found lifeless days before his return to the US. Why would God allow his life to be cut so short? Well, sometimes, she reminds us, we will have to sacrifice our life when we are called to do God's will. ummmm [think on that].

Although there is so much to say about this weekend , I think this definitely topped it all. Such a powerful message that I wish I had time to expand on. In any cases, I hope that the little I shared could be of an encouragement to you. Remember that when you're answering the call of Jesus, it will be a lonely road, but in the end it'll be worth it. Only ONE can ever said He walked on WATER with Jesus. Test Him. Stop living your spiritual life vicariously through your friend, elder, pastor, or whatnot. Get your own experience.

[ back to work now...break time over! :(]