Into my own

Hello everyone, I am so glade that I have had this opportunity to share my blog with you guy's and let my mind out on screen with out feeling judged. For all those who has followed me and gave me great advice you are very appreciated and I will take your advice and apply it as best as I can. As each day passes I get better with the fear of living out loud, but I wont stop trying to get there. It may seem sad to some of you and I have to admit it was sad to me also in the beginning but fear is a battle that is fought by many of us in this world meaning we all have something we can do without or something we are afraid of. I guess that's what makes us human right! Still moving forward, still giving life my all and still will never give up on my journey for mental freedom and in this journey I am coming into my own. Thanks to you all and good luck with everything. At the end of the term I will tell you what T.O.Y.G stands for and how it saved me in the name of love.

On our last might

Beloved,
many a time i find myself on my last might, trying hard to hold on to God. This week is such a week. But when everything fails i always remind myself that its just a reminder from God that only He matters and has the last say. In Him do we trust. The passage that has held me during this time is Jeremiah 33:3 ....'Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.'

Writing the 'Test'

"Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts" (Psalm 105:1-2).

Randy was running his own business and getting straight A's in college. When I asked how he did it, he said, "It's simple. I write my own test. As I study, I anticipate what will be on the test, and then I write possible questions. When I take the test, I'll know many of the answers because I've already written the questions."

I have a simple test to find out if I am on the right track spiritually each day. God has written it for me in 1 Thessalonians 5:18:"Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." I ask myself if I am giving thanks in all circumstances. If I am holding a grudge or worrying or focusing on my own desires, then I am not giving thanks. I am able to be grateful in all situations only if I know that He is with me and is for me because of Jesus. So when I am "failing the test," I simply start giving thanks, and then I am indeed doing God's will for me in Christ Jesus - it's an easy "A."

Promise of Steadfastness

"Surely he will never be shaken; a righteous man will be remembered for ever. He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord" (Psalm 112:6-7).

The King James Version of this passage says "his heart is fixed." Similarly, Isaiah 26:3: You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is fixed on you." This "fixing" of our hearts is the essence of steadfastness.

Job was unwavering in heart when he cried out, "Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him"
(Job13:15). To be fixed is to be like Abraham of whom it is said that when all hope was gone, he still hoped, knowing that God would never let His word fail. God's promises will always be kept.

A story goes that a man walking along a cliff slips over the edge. He clings to a sapling and is hanging over a sheer drop, hundreds of feet. He yells, "Is there anyone up there? Help! Help!" He hears a voice saying, "This is God. Just let go! I will catch you and set you safely on the ground." There is silence and then an even louder, frantic cry: "Is there anyone else up there?"

There is no one else up there and no one else anywhere as steadfast as He!

Promise to Blot Out Our Sins

"...Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross"
(Colossians 2:14, KJV).

I am no computer whiz, but apparently experts have ways of retrieving old memory which has been cancelled on the computer. Some trace is always left behind.

It is not like that for us. The Lord says in Isaiah 1:18, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." We might suspect that these days forensics might be able to reveal some staining! Not so, however, because the Lord removes all possible suspicion of that. The Greek word for "blotting out" means wiping a slate, totally obliterating what was there before. Our sins do not belong to us anymore. Our slate is clean. God took them on Himself, nailing them to the cross.

Always ready to beat ourselves up, we then say what about our on-going sinfulness? Martin Luther said, "The remnant of sin is not laid to our charge but freely pardoned. Sometimes we fall into sin, yet we are not discouraged and must not think that our state of life displeases God lest we despair, but we raise ourselves up through faith!"

Poor Promises, Good Promises

The essence of trusting God's promises is trusting the God who makes them. In the rather nihilistic film "Revolutionary Road," someone says to the principal character, "You have put your trust in
a promise no one ever made to you." That is a broken reed indeed!

Many put their trust in human promises. For instance, the remedies from self-help literature promise the earth and do not deliver. The thing about God is that He is the only one who can always deliver. He has the will, and He has the power to perform His promises. The 18th Century English writer, William Romaine, wrote to a friend, "As I was going along the road, I heard a voice saying, 'CEASE YE FROM MAN, from yourself, from others: put no confidence in them. Put not your trust in princes, not in any child of man, be he wise, or great, or good. Nay, look not at them, but with a single eye, look unto Jesus.'"

He set out on a new path of not heeding other promises but only the promises of God.

God's Gracious Promises

"For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless...Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace..." (Romans 4:14, 16).

Human promises are fallible. All denominations of English pound notes bear the caption "The Bank of England promises to pay the bearer on demand the sum of __ pounds." Especially in the current economic climate, they are unlikely to be of the same value in the future as they are today.

God's promises are gracious. That is, there is nothing we can do to earn them. God's gift of eternal life in His Son is all of grace (Great
Riches At Christ's Expense).

The new covenant with us is not a contract: God does something for us if we do something reciprocal for Him. I spent a large part of my early career in a business based on contractual relationships. No, Christ loved us and died for us when we were still sinners. That is the graciousness of God's dealing.

The Christian life is all about God's promises to us, not about our promises to Him. He is the Promise Keeper while our New Year resolutions fade before January is out! "If we are faithless, he will remain faithful" (2 Timothy 2:13).

He Works Through My Weakness

"Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, 'So shall your offspring be'" (Romans 4:18).

God promised Abraham that He'd bless him and make his descendants a great nation which would be a blessing to all nations (Genesis 12:2).

Then Abraham had to wait until he and his wife were very old before the promised heir, Isaac was born. Imagine Abraham's feelings when he was then asked by God to sacrifice Isaac as an offering to God. How could that be? Was God breaking His promise that his descendants would bless the world?

But Abraham trusted in God. He didn't know how, but one way or another God was going to honor His promise. And God did just that. This faith, credited to him as righteousness, is the saving faith of Galatians 3:6-9.

The blessing is ours when we put our trust in Jesus as our Savior; we believe He is whom God's Word declares Him to be, and we receive Him into our hearts and are born again. His is the foundation promise, the gateway for us to become heirs of the promise of eternal life (see 1 John 2:25).

Difficult Directions

"All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their leader. About four hundred men were with him" (1 Samuel 22:2).

It's easy to expect God to simplify our lives when we're trying to serve Him. Burdened by the weight of our problems, we think God's leading is only evident when He lightens our load. Yet King David's life became increasingly hard while he followed God. God led him through long periods of waiting and seemed to send additional challenges in the meantime.

God chose David to be Israel's second king, but He didn't create an easy path to that position. Not only did David have to wait years before becoming king, he also had to run for his life much of that time. We might expect God to at least give David strong, powerful, and respected men to lead while fighting enemies. But God assigned David the distressed, the indebted, the discontented.

There's no record of David questioning if he had misunderstood God's leading. He willingly worked with those God placed in his path. David followed God - and led God's people - confident in the character of God even when life was hard.

God's First Promise

"...a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time" (Titus 1:2).

This is stupendous! God promised before the world began to give his people (not yet created) eternal life - everlasting joy in His presence! This was His purpose in creating us. And this was given us in Christ before all time.

This promise makes me keenly aware that my future is not dependent on my past or my present. Nor does it rest on any aspect of my life - my shortcomings and misdeeds, any virtues I may have. My future is founded entirely and securely on God's promise eons before I ever was. My eternal being is rooted in God's ageless plan. What security that gives us!

My destiny, therefore, is founded on God's character not on mine, on His promise, not on any I might make. And our aim in sharing this good news is that others might also become heirs of this promise, made before time began, in Christ.

As our hearts are warmed to Him for His tremendous love, we say with Paul, "O, the depth of the riches of wisdom and knowledge of God!"

Unexpected Answer

"Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer the door...she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it..." (Acts 12:13).

Do you sometimes pray with a degree of skepticism? Even while you're asking God to show the way out of your financial ruin or to take the cancer away or to grant comfort in the recent loss of a loved one, you don't actually expect to see "an answer" from God.

In today's reading, an angel miraculously freed Peter from jail. The fervent prayers of Peter's friends had been answered just as they'd hoped! Rhoda quickly recognized Peter's voice and God's answer to prayer. The other friends' cynical response when Rhoda told them he was at the door indicates their lack of faith.

How often do we pray for others, only to lose faith the longer we wait? The beauty of this story isn't just God sparing Peter's life; it's also God's willingness to allow skeptics to recognize His hand and share in the joy of God's answer.

Rejoice when God provides finances, healing, or comfort. Realize He may choose not to provide those. But above all trust Him and rest in His care.

Always in Style

"They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening
of their hearts" (Ephesians 4:18).

Each season retailers advertise new lines of clothing, promoting new styles and latest trends. It's hard to keep up with the changes!

Paul's encouragement "to put off your old self... and to put on the new self" relates to the clothing of our mind. The purpose isn't to make ourselves, our church, or our God reflect a fashionable image. The purpose is for us to reflect the very image of God.

When the routine of life turns into a season of heartache, we usually don't understand God's ways. Bitterness clothes us. After all, a darkened understanding coordinates well with distancing ourselves from God and hardening our hearts. But we "did not come to know Christ that way" (Ephesians 4:20).

Even while we wait for a difficult situation to end, we remember we're clothed in righteousness. Because Christ has redeemed us, we wear the clothing that displays truthfulness, self-control, and encouragement, attributes reflecting our magnificent Designer. Such apparel, purchased for us with Christ's own blood, will never go out of style.
Blessed one stay in His Love

I'll Wait for Heaven

"...Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently" (Romans 8:18, 25).

"If you don't pick up your play dough, you won't be allowed to play with it for a very, very long time!" the young mother threatened.

Her toddler thought for a moment and asked, "Can I play with it when I get to heaven?"

Waiting wouldn't be so bad if we always thought of our delays with an eternal perspective. Instead we fret, wanting to know when our struggle will be over. Will my problem end in a week or in a month? Will the relationship be restored soon?

Paul reminds the Romans that allowing God's glory to shine through their struggle gives them strength to wait. Paul focuses attention on God being glorified through suffering, not on God ending it. Some people use this passage to justify that God is obligated to smooth out life's problems. God's eternal perspective does not limit the fulfillment of His promises to our timetable. Regardless of when He brings an answer, we can be as satisfied as the toddler who will once again play with his play dough - even if he waits until heaven.

Peaceful Parting

"They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark...but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord" (Acts 15:39-40).

Although we may idealize the lives and faith of Biblical characters, Scripture shows their lives to be very human, filled with struggles. For example, Paul wanted to return with Barnabas to the towns in which they had previously preached. Barnabas wanted to take his cousin, John Mark. Paul adamantly refused since Mark had previously deserted them. A disagreement arose.
Paul saw Barnabas's decision as unwise; Barnabas saw Paul's decision as unforgiving. Unable to reach a compromise, they parted ways. Yet they remained committed to their mission of strengthening churches and bringing unbelievers to faith. God blessed both of them.

Throughout history, successful partners have been effective and memorable. Still sometimes partners reach an impasse. Ideally we would compromise and continue working together since God delights in unity.

Paul and Barnabas' experience illustrates, however, that at times God blesses a peaceful parting.

"Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind" (Acts 9:8).

After his encounter instead of condemning the followers of Christ to their death, Saul desired to follow Christ with his life.
Once converted, he waited in blindness for three days. How long those three days must have seemed to Saul. Would it last forever? Yet those days of darkness never diminished his desire to serve Christ. While blind, he waited; once healed, he sprang up for the cause of Christ.

In our darkest days of worry, regret or failure, we may reach a standstill. The wait is not because God will not forgive us or because He doesn't have time to help. More likely, we're just unable to see how God brings the healing we need. He may send a friend with compassion and encouragement. Though we wait in the dark, God will not leave us there.
Others are waiting in the dark..and these audio bibles could be their last hope. Do keep us in Prayer. stay blessed.

Compelling Temptation

Jesus understands the lure of instant gratification. He was "tempted in every way, just as we are - yet was without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). He resisted every temptation because He knew the truth of Scripture. God's character has been revealed through Jesus. Why wouldn't I confidently trust in God's timing and His provision?

We can resist the lure of temptation by filling up with the nourishing truth of God's Word.
Blessed one, we trust in God to open up a door for us to distribute these electronic bibles. Stay blessed and do Pray for this Ministry.

The need to wait....

When our needs are greater than our faith in God's intervention, He may be trying to increase our faith. He sees the need we bring to Him, but He also sees the need for our faith to grow. When God is not "showing up", or when we feel most desperate for His help, wait while your faith grows and God is glorified.

As we wait to build our webserver for christ..let's remember that waiting is a faith increasing catalyst. I love you all in the Lord.

The Gospel is here to stay

Blessed one,
We are embarking on setting up a big web server to host audio bibles( in various languages) for free listening and download. Please join this blog and support the project.
God bless you all.