A reflection on Purpose Driven Life - Day 5.
Life is a Trust.
This is the life that God has entrusted us with. He has prepared for us everything that we need ahead of time, none of them that we deserve. It is only by His goodness and faithfulness that He has given us health, wealth, wisdom and everything good in life. However, life on earth is only temporary and as such, everything that we have here, we don't actually own them - God has lent them to us. They aren't only obvious material possessions, but are inclusive of your relationships, friends, families, time and money.
Our God has put us in charge of managing everything that He has given us. He wants us to... manage our relationships, time and money, among other things, well. As good managers, we have to be careful of handling our possessions. So friends, whenever you feel like wasting your time, money and even ending a friendship with someone, remember that they have been given to us for a reason, and we are not to take them for granted. For everything that we do, have their implications in eternity.
So friends, be good managers and manage your life well! As the saying goes, "one life, live it."
Have a great Purpose Driven Life Campaign! =)
Monday, October 13, 2008
A Trust
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Wanna piece of Me???
Today, I want to share with you guys a powerful sermon from Ps. Mark Venti of Generations Church, Seattle (dari podcast ku hehe) about the power of the cross & God's sacrifice.
As a start,
we know that Bible is God's love letter with themes like grace, mercy, compassion, and love and with the Cross being the centerpiece of our faith.
God also often refers to the church as a bride and Jesus as the bridegroom.
WHY? "because salvation resembles a marriage covenant and has everything to do with a life-giving relationship that causes you to live out the things you ought to be doing and that comes from our relationship with Jesus Christ."
When God created Adam, He creates a "comparable" helper for him, a woman. If it wasn't so, Adam couldn't have fulfilled his destiny (to populate the earth). For that to happen, God had to put Adam "into a deep sleep," took one of his ribs and formed the woman.
The same thing took place thousands of years later when Jesus came into the earth to fulfill God's plan...
of salvation for mankind. Nobody is comparable to Jesus, but God decides to use us humans to work with Jesus to accomplish His plans. He wants His plan to include people. That's why we have the church. In addition to that, He also lets us have the freewill to choose Him & out of this relationship, share the love of God with others. Similarly as to how Adam was put into a deep sleep (sleep is often described similarly to death in the Bible), God calls Jesus to take death upon His shoulder and this sacrifice brings about the church.
A divine exchange took place when Jesus died on the cross.
He paid the penalty of our sins just so that we can be "brand new" & have eternal life.
He traded our wickedness, pride, anger & lust with His righteousness, purity & peace.
It may be hard to comprehend God's love naturally because it's irrational.
Our whole life, we think tt we get only what we deserve & tt we have 2b holy & righteous before we can present ourselves to God.
It's kind of like when we want to trade our stinky, old pair of socks w/ a pair of new shoes. It'll sound foolish if anybody would want to trade with us.
But it's written in Romans 5:8 that "while we are still sinners, Christ died for us."
We are not perfect but we're forgiven.
But,
That's when God wants to come into our lives.
He was waiting for us to cry out to Him to fix our lives.
God wants to trade our imperfections (pain, anger, etc.) for His healing & peace.
That's His grace, His love, and His mercy.
P.S.
Some of us are still carrying one of those "filthy rags" in our lives right now,
but God is asking us; do we want to hold onto these things or make a trade with Him?
A trade that doesn't make logical sense but is possible only through the power of the cross.
The cross & its power is there both on the day we got saved and on every day of our lives.
So, let go of the things and we can be "partakers of His divine nature" - have a piece of God that comes from inside of you. (2 Peter 1:3-4)
Monday, October 6, 2008
Site update: "Read More" feature added
Hello guys..
The "read more" link at the end of each post is working now :) Thanks to my friend David for teaching me such skill lol.. anyway, if you guys were about to post entries now, you'll see things like
"< span class="fullpost" >
blank space
< /span >"
when you select the "Edit Html" tab.
Now, to "cut" your post so that the readers will see only part of it, enter whatever you want to see the moment you enter our blog before the < span class="fullpost" >
In the blank space... enter the rest of the entry you want to "hide" until one clicks the "Read More" link at the end of your published post. Gd luck! :) Please email or text me if you guys are confused, like I was when I first started. Haha.. God bless you!
-Eva
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Day 1
It All Starts With God
Hi everyone, I'm glad that you're a part of this campaign. I wanna congratulate all of you beforehand because I know that you'll benefit from this book! It is very crucial that you maintain the discipline to follow a reading plan--it'll be even better if you can make a personal commitment to dedicate 30mins-1 hour a day to read the book and REFLECT on the content of the book.
Anyway, I wish you all the best in the quest to find your TRUE purpose of living! If you have any questions about the book, verses or anything, feel free to contact your group leader or you can reach me at my e-mail or cell... take care!
GBU
