What is Jesus doing now? ~ God's Word

Bu curing the sick, raising the dead, and rescuing people in peril, Jesus demonstrated what he would eventually do for all obedient mankind. (Luke 18:35-42; John 5:28-29) After Jesus died, God restored him to life as a spirit person. (1 Peter 3:18) Jesus then waited at God’s right hand and gave him power to rule as King over all the earth. (Hebrews 10:12-13) Now Jesus is ruling as King in heaven, and his follower on earth are announcing the good news world-wide.—Daniel 7:13-14; Matthew 24:14.

Soon, Jesus will use his power as King to put an end to all suffering and those who cause it. Millions who exercise faith in Jesus and obey him will enjoy life in a paradise on earth.—Psalm 37:9-11

Why did Jesus die? ~ God's Word

Who could pay the ransom to free us from death? When we die, we pay the penalty only for our own sins. No imperfect man can pay for the sins of others. –Psalm 49:7-9. Since Jesus did not inherit imperfection from a human father, he died, not because of his own sins, but for the sins of others. God sent his Son to die for us as an expression of his extraordinary love for mankind. Jesus also showed love for us by obeying his Father and giving his life for our sins.—John 3:16; Roman 5:18-19.

Why do we need a ransom? ~ God's Word

A ransom is a price paid to release a person from bondage. Death and old age were not part of God’s original purpose for mankind. How do we know that? God told the first man, Adam, that if he committed what the Bible calls sin, he would die. If Adam had not sinned, he would never have died. Even though Adam’s life did not end until centuries later, he began to die from the day he disobeyed God. (Genesis 2:16, 17; 5:5) Adam passed on to all his descendants sin and its penalty, death. Thus, death “entered” the world of mankind through Adam. That is why we need a ransom.—Romans 5:12; 6:23

Rulership and Judgment

On one occasion during the final days of Jesus’ ministry, the mother of Jesus’ close disciples James and John came to Jesus and said: “Give the word that these my two sons may sit down, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” (Matthew 20:21) Clearly, she was not speaking about something in the heart of her sons. She understood that the Kingdom involved rulership with Jesus, and she wanted her sons to have a share in it. In fact, Jesus did promise his 11 faithful apostles that they would be in his Kingdom and “sit on thrones” and “judge” with him. (Luke 22:30) To his followers, then, Jesus’ Kingdom was to be a real rulership—an administration, a government.

What about the people in general in Jesus’ day? Did they understand the Kingdom to be just a personal transformation, or did they expect something more? Well, shortly before Passover 33 C.E. when Jesus was entering Jerusalem riding a colt, the crowd welcomed him and some cried out: “Save, we pray, the Son of David!” (Matthew 21:9) Why did they cry out that way? No doubt they had come to recognize that Jesus was the promised Messiah and that God would give him an everlasting Kingdom, “the throne of David his father.” They longed for the salvation, peace, and justice that they Kingdom would bring.—Luke 1:32; Zechariah 9:9.

5 Things to Remember About Winning People

The toughest thing about fresh insight, new strategies and personal passion to see it through is waiting for others to catch the wave! Here are five things to help you stay the course as you try to champion a dream, win people over and lead changes of any kind.

■ It’s a trip, not a destination.

If we’re focused on the outcome, we’ll constantly feel the frustration instead of the win. But, if we focus on the people over the project (or the process over the event) relationships will gradually strengthen and each little step will feel like a win on the way to our ultimate goal. Remember, it’s less about technique than it is attitude.

■ It’s not “all or nothing.”

We can’t change everyone and everything at once. There’s going to be several steps forward and a couple steps back along the way. Don’t let that discourage you if it’s more of an exception rather than a rule. It’s like a golf game. You’re going to have some good holes and some bad ones. When you have a bad hole, move on to the next one. It’s not game over.

■ Focus on a few rather than many.

Rarely, if ever, is a one-size-fits-all roll-out effective. We are going to have to spend more time with some leaders over others. And, what works to get buy-in from one person won’t work with the next. It takes time to navigate through the personalities to discover what motivates and builds trust for each person. Invest in constant and ongoing conversations with your boss all along the way. Not to get things done, but to keep processing the wins, the struggles and the cost of standing still. And, then pick one or two leaders to invest in to build a trust and create some key, visible wins. It will attract others to the cause and you’ll gradually gain momentum and speed.

■ It takes time.

God isn’t just using this change to help improve others, he’s using others to help change us. Whatever time you think it’s going to take to roll something out, multiply that by at least 3. It’s not linear but multi-dimensional. There is more at play than we can see. With faith, persistence and a commitment to self-awareness the stars will start to come into alignment down the road. It may take us about 3 years to start to see a tipping point for some initiatives we’ve led in the past-not 3 months.

■ You’re never done.

While you will build more advocates in your camp among the way, it will never be 100% consensus. You will need to keep refining your vision casting, coaching and redirecting skills. There will always be new team members or difficult personalities unwilling or unable to change. What you can look forward, though is the hard part being 20% of your job instead of 80%. – St. Paul United Methodist Church “The Weekly Beacon”

Get rid of Stinking Thinking (Part 1 of 2)

Good morning friends. Many said let us get rid of stink thinking. I believe in that. Sometimes when we think of horrible things even if it’s not happening yet, we feel different. And it affects ourselves. Life is hard but I believe we have to think all positive thoughts so our doings will all be resulted to positive too. Let me tell you something that I had been read in the weekly Beacon of our church. It’s a good one. Here it says …

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: (Philippians 2:5).

“You can think your way to failure and unhappiness, but you can also think your way to success and happiness. The world in which you live is not primarily determined by outward conditions and circumstances but by the thoughts that habitually occupy your mind.” Norman Vincent Peale.

Marcus Aurelius said, “A man’s life is what his thoughts make of it.”

It has been said that the wisest man who ever lived in America was Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Sage of Concord. Emerson declared, “A man is what he thinks about all day long.”

If you think you can have revival, you can.

You get what you pray for. If you are praying for revival and believe with all of your heart that revival will come, it will come. It will come with god’s timing, and He is bound by His word. And His word says that He hears us when we pray. If we are seeking for His will and are sincerely seeking revival for our church and community, it will come. We have to believe!

“But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putted in the sickle, because the harvest is come.” (mark 4:29)

If you think your church will grow, it will.

If you are praying for your church to grow, it will. If you plant the seed of faith, and water it with prayers and fasting, the church is destined to grow. It is the will of God for the church to grow. This is His church and He wants it to succeed. We have to get our thinking right, get our attitudes straightened up and get on board with what God has in store for us.

See you on the second part of my article ….

Praise in the Dugout

Orel Herschiser pitched an unbelievable 1988 season for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Following a complete game shutout in August, he pitched multiple shutout innings and hurled five more complete games through the end of the regular season. He did not allow his opponents to score and earned run in 59 consecutive innings. When the Dodgers faced the New York Mets in the National League play-offs, Orel continued to dominant hitters, leading the Dodgers to victory by pitching more than 24 innings, crowned by a complete game shutout in the final game! In the World Series his complete gave victory over the Oakland A’s in game five clinched the series for the Dodgers. No wonder Orel was awarded the Cy Young award and two MVP awards, one for the National League play-offs and the other for the World Series.

During the play-offs the TV cameras zoomed in on this legend in the making. They caught Orel in the dugout between innings singing softly to himself. Unable to make out the tune, the announcers merely commented that Orel’s record certainly gave him something to sing about. Johnny Carson replayed that tape on the “Tonight Show” a few days later when Orel appeared. Johnny asked him what song he had been singing during the game and if Orel would sing it again right then and there. the audience roared its approval over Orel’s embarrassed reluctance. So on national TV, Orel softly sang the tune TV crews had barely caught on tape:

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Praise Him all creatures here below;
Praise Him above ye heavenly host,
Praised Father, son and Holy Ghost. Amen.”

Orel Herschiser was simply doing what Christians do – praising God for everything that he’s achieved. Paul urges the Colossians, “Whatever you do… do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (3:17). Not only at church, but in the in-between moments, thank God for your gifts, talents and every blessing you have – he gave them to you. - Beacon

Seek, Work,Win - Quote

God did not make us to be eaten up by anxiety, but to walk straight, free, unafraid in a world where there is work to do, truth to seek, love to give and win.

L O V E

May the Lord make your Love for one
another and for all people grow more and

more and become as great as our Love for
you. In this way he will strengthen you,
and you will be perfect and holy in the
presence of our God and Father when our

Lord Jesus comes with all who belong to him.

1 Thessalonians 3:12

Keep it Big

Good morning everyone. I read one good article. Each and every one of us wants a fuller prayer life. We always wanted to be connected to God, as He will be our strength in all the trials in life that we will have.

Whether or not we mean to, most of us have a habit of making God smaller than he really is. “Everyone approaches God with a set of preconceptions gleaned from many sources,” say Yancey. “Church, Sunday school lessons, stray comments by believers and skeptics alike.” Such images aren’t necessarily a bad thing. After all without mental images of some kind, it would be impossible to think about God at all. But we need to remember that the God who we clothe in these images is in truth much bigger than we can actually imagine. When we’re not shrinking God down, we’re often busy doing just the opposite, shrinking ourselves down, pretending that God is too big and too important to hear us. Who am I to bother God with my problem? we ask. God doesn’t have time to listen to me.

Wrong. When we pray, we are entering God’s time—eternity. And eternity is very different from time as we ordinarily experience it. rather than picture God as a busy switchboard operator juggling incoming requests, we should thing of him as a deeply relaxed and sympathetic listener, a power who can absorb all of our thoughts and prayers and needs. As Jewell writes: “To enter God’s time is to accept that he is always available. He’s not hiding way off in the future. God is available now.” And as Yancey puts it, “The common question, ‘How can God listen to millions of prayers at once?’ betrays an inability to think outside time. God’s infinite greatness, which we would expect to diminish us, actually makes possible the very closeness that we desire. A God unbound by our rules of time has, quite literally, all the time in the worlds for each one of us. – Ptolemy Tompkins

Message of Butterflies' Wings

Good morning friends. I just remember when I’m still young, I just love to see a butterfly specially when she is resting on a flower. I wonder how why she love to rest on it. I ran to the butterfly and try to catch it. The butterfly just flew away. It rested again on another flower. It is sucking the nectar of the flower. When I look at its pretty wings, it folds its wings when it rests. And it opens its wings when it flies. I asked myself why butterflies did that. There are times in our life we experience a situation even we don’t want, but in every situation God is always in our side and He will always care for us as we least expected.

At that point, I was pondering whether there was justice from heaven that allows such tragedies to happen. But, even in my desperation, I knew that i wanted to believe in God and His love. So prayer is the one that ease my feelings. I fervently prayed every day especially before I went to bed.

I asked for a sing with butterflies, although I hadn’t heard of butterflies signifying the soul or spirit. I sometimes even asked for specific colors—blue, yellow and green butterflies.

My agony of being alone without someone on my side just passed. I was very heartbroken, and remained under. I doubted now if I have really lost my faith in God had He not done so, but I am more certain at that point of His love.

I believe now that He loves me more than I do ever love myself. And I also know that He loves me for He answered my prayer in my hour of need. He ended my suffering for being heartbroken. And I’m really grateful for what He did. I praise Him so much. I love you God!

When bad things happen to good people

Good morning everyone. I want to let you all know that I’m not a Catholic, I’m a Protestant (Methodist). But it’s not a problem to me as long as we worship God Almighty. Even if I’m Catholic, I glad if I read something about God. Like this article which was presented by Bob Garon, it was a nice words he used and that’s why I want to share it with you out there.

“God is good, all the time,” says a popular worship song. In good times, that is easy to believe. Blessings pour down on us and we can almost see the smile on the face of God. So too can we feel His love. All’s well between God and us.

When, however, the times turn against us and things no longer go our way, it is sometimes difficult for us to keep smiling at God. Somehow, we find it hard to feel Him and the smile on His face seems to us to blur a bit. We might even start to wonder if He might be displeased with us.

And there are those among us who are convinced that God sends us His blessings only when they are in line with our expectations. Like little kids who think that if they are good, their parents will agree to bring them to Mc Donald’s, we believe that if we behave well, God will grant us our wishes.

It does not work that way. There are two plans, God’s plans and our plans, and ours don’t matter much. God does not give us what we want, He gives us what we need. And when we don’t get what we want, some of us react like those little kids whose parents won’t bring them to Mc Donald’s.

We react and stomp our spiritual feet and start thinking that He does not longer loves us. We might be adults, but spiritual children. Matured in the ways of the world, but immature in the ways of God. If we expect to get our way with God, we could be in for a big surprise. God has His ways, His plan and it might not be anything like what we want and expect.

Some of our greatest blessings come wrapped in pain. They are the blessings that hurt for a while, but in the end, give us the most joy. We mourn the breakup of a cherished relationship only to find one more satisfying later on. Now the breakup is seen as a distinct blessing.

As we mature spiritually, we learn to take things as they come and not keep questioning the wisdom of the Creator. We learn to trust Him more and question less. As our faith increases, our doubts are less and our willingness to bow to His will is greater.

A diamond for the youth - 2

We all get to a point in our lives where our vibrant dreams suddenly turn into a dismal blur. Some would instruct us to do our part then leave it all to God. On the other hand, some would insist that your human abilities are just not enough. So which is it, really? Is it because you lack the faith and fervent prayers to back your aspirations, or are you really not capable of receiving what you long for because of your lack of skills, patience or education? I guess that certain elements will always come to play when it comes to the achievement of things that we hope for. The first is your actual qualifications.

Ask yourself, are your credentials, training and experience sufficient for whatever goal you want to achieve? You cannot be the CEO of a large, multinational firm if you didn’t even finish college. Some may argue that there are still some people who make it big even without the necessary education, as seen in the success stories of dropouts who have become tech magnates or street children who have metamorphosed into boxing superstars. But this is simply a myth; one way or another, these people have paved their way to get there. They did not simply wake up one day with the hand of God casting them from the slums to the big time. They had to work long hours, developed virtues and self-studied to know how to get to where they are now.

And now you wonder why you have all it takes and you’re even overqualified, but you still don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Here’s where life’s most important aspect comes into play—making a huge effort where it matters most. There are those who might not be as talented, but they have excelled more because of their perseverance. After all, diamonds are simply bits of coal that stuck to their jobs. I admit that I am one of the many people who are guilty of the lack of this—I allowed myself to drift from one job to another, not focusing on just one thing because I thought that I could do everything. I also confess that I’ve considered immediate gratification rather than knowing the ropes and then earning my wings to orchestrate the show. Like most of the young people, I’ve sought acceptance, popularity and easy money. We all forget top build up on the essentials and never run out of excuses for not sowing yesterday what we could be reaping today.

Forgiving our mistakes and pledging to get better is the first way to get somewhere right. There’s a fine line between keeping your mess and fixing up straight. Your decision today will determine your tomorrow.

ref: inquirer.net