~IT'S ALL GOOD: Inspirational, Hopeful, Positive Messages~

[taga_ipil]

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Thanks Guys for the time reading it, I never thought there will be a reply from this.

Lets continue doing a good deeds no matter what religion we are.

[taga_ipil]

Maintaining a clean heart
by Jon Walker

“May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to You, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.” (Psalms 19:14 HCSB)

Discipleship — Have you ever carried on a debate with some one – for hours? Perhaps the debate lasted for days, an intense debate, where you made every point brilliantly, proving your position was right and justified.

And even though you win the debate, it still keeps going because the debate is all in your head – you against a phantom opponent who represents someone who hurt you in the reality of life. You go over the hurt again and again – in your mind.

Jesus knows about the human tendency to have these extended conversations in our mind – how we’ll go over a situation again and again, creating an ever-deeper rut of hurt and anger.

He also knows that these thoughts – as well as the things we say within our head or through our lips – are reflections of the landscape of our hearts. He says, “What comes out of the mouth gets its start in the heart.” (Matthew 15:18-20 MSG)

Our hearts speak louder than our words.

The Apostle Paul explains, “If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-13 MSG)

In other words, on the dashboard of your life, the gauge that monitors the condition of your heart is what comes out of your mouth: anger or acceptance, criticism or encouragement, bitterness or forgiveness.

God doesn’t want us to try to hide the condition of our hearts by being insincere in what we say or do – God forbid that.

He wants us to hand him our hearts so he can scrub them clean and heal our hurts.

The king of ancient Israel, David, confessed the sin in his heart, inviting God to change the condition of his heart: “God, create a clean heart for me and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (Psalms 51:10 HCSB)

When you give God your heart, he will set a guard around it: “And the peace of God, which surpasses every thought, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7 HCSB)

[taga_ipil]

Send Picture First
by Jon Walker

“So we have stopped evaluating others by what the world thinks about them. Once I mistakenly thought of Christ that way, as though he were merely a human being. How differently I think about him now!” (2 Corinthians 5:16 NLT)

“Send picture first, then I’ll reply” – This is a pretty common message among the personal ads, and in this age of alienation and e-community, it makes a lot of sense to approach any unknown relationship with care and caution.

But let me ask this question: When it comes to real love – real as opposed to some fantasy-romantic love – do you find yourself saying, “Send picture first?”

We may say it in different ways. For instance, we may say, think, or judge: “I have to see if you’re good enough.” “I’m not sure you’re worthy of my love.” “You need to act the way I expect before I’ll love you.”

And, for a moment, forget the unknown people in our lives. We often make these judgments about the people closest to us, our loved ones.

In our walk with Christ, the Apostle Paul instructs us to stop judging people according to the flesh (2 Corinthians 5), which is a King Jamesion way of saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover or other people by appearances.” To paraphrase Paul: “We don't evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don't look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new ….” (2 Corinthians 5:16b-17a MSG)

Now, let me ask you a pointed question, one I’m also asking myself today: When it comes to loving God, do you find yourself saying, “Send picture first?”

My own answer to that is “Ouch!”

Yet, God in his grace did send a picture first – the picture of Jesus, his body broken and stretched out on the cross, dying for your sins. Even as we had yet to send our picture, God sent his picture first. (That’s my paraphrase of Romans 5:8 – “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” NIV)

The thing is, while we’re actively engaged in a passive love – saying, “You send your picture first” – God already is setting a place for you at the banquet table. We’re sticking our toes in the water to see if the warmth invites us enough to risk rejection. Yet, God in his grace invites us to the wedding feast, where we are guaranteed to be accepted among his beloved.

So what?

· God takes the initiative – God is reaching out to you, and he’s already provided the means for you to come into a close, lasting relationship with him. The king invites us to a wedding feast in honor of his Son! (Matthew 22)

· What pictures are you sending – When you are timid or uncertain in seeking or responding to God, you are passively saying, “You go first God. Send me a picture of what this looks like before I decide if I’m going to do it.” Are you sending God pictures of disobedience, faith-lessness, luke warm attitudes, a refusal to accept his grace? “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8 NIV).

· What does God look like? – Here’s one likeness of him: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us ….” (1 John 3:16a NIV)

[Mr.Ho_chia]

Thanks taga_ipil, your posts are always timely, it indeed shows what spirit you have, I am rebuked by my human attempt to pursue my point all the time. It is no longer HIS battle it became my personal retaliation and vindictiveness is sprouting out of my heart. truly out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh. thanks for reminding.

Great Thread! :mrgreen:

Looking forward for your next post. GOD bless........

[Mr.Ho_chia]

rightly so. I am so blessed. :mrgreen:

[taga_ipil]

Thanks taga_ipil, your posts are always timely, it indeed shows what spirit you have, I am rebuked by my human attempt to pursue my point all the time. It is no longer HIS battle it became my personal retaliation and vindictiveness is sprouting out of my heart. truly out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh. thanks for reminding.

Great Thread! :mrgreen:

Looking forward for your next post. GOD bless........

anytime... :mrgreen:

[Mr.Ho_chia]

:mrgreen:

@ghost_rider.

Great story. keep on posting....................... :mrgreen:

[taga_ipil]

God's-eye view
by John Fischer

“For now we see through a glass, darkly …” (1 Corinthians 13:12 KJV)

I had a mentor once who loved to teach about faith from a 20-foot long timeline of Bible history that he used as a powerful visual effect. He would roll out this room-sized diagram with a long line from Adam and Eve to the present day. On it, at appropriate spots, he would place little figures representing some of the well-known characters of the Bible such as Abraham, Moses, David, Ezekiel, and Paul. Then, he would walk over to where, say, Moses was, turn him toward the future, and place a dark pane of glass right in front of his nose.

“This is how much Moses could see when he looked this way,” he would say, and because we had the perspective of the rest of the timeline, we could understand Moses’ dilemma, but also gain strength from what we knew lay ahead of him that he couldn’t see. In other words, in relation to Moses, we had more of a God’s-eye view of things.

Though Moses could not see into the future, there were two directions he could look, both of which were useful to his faith and in turn are useful to ours. He could look back and see how God had been faithful in his own life up until then, and, most importantly, he could look up to God and put his trust in the one who sees all.

The obvious lesson here is that we are in a similar place. We can only look back to the past and up to God, and remember there is a God’s-eye view of this; we just can’t see it right now. He knows what he’s doing and how the events of our lives fit into his overall purposes for us and those around us. He sees reasons we have no access to. He sees a plan that looks at best murky from our point of view. But the future, and God’s purposes for us, and the reliability of his promises are no less reliable than they were to Moses. In fact, we have the huge benefit of much more history than Moses ever had – the fulfillment of things he could only dream about.

So just remember, whatever you are going through today or wondering about in relation to tomorrow, there is a God’s-eye view of this. Look up.

[taga_ipil]

It’s not about being a good Christian
by John Fischer

Here’s one of the greatest things about being a Christian: You can accept yourself for who you are.

Here’s one of the most tragic things about being a Christian: You can be one for a long time without knowing this.

I was. I was what you might call a model Christian. I filled the bill. Any church or Christian school would have seen me as a poster child Christian. There was only one problem: I thought I was, too – when all the while I knew I wasn’t. I knew it was all pretty much a game.

All this was back when I thought a Christian was all about being a good person – someone who would rank high in relative goodness when compared to others more spiritually challenged.

This was before I realized that Christ died to save sinners, and to qualify for the free gift of salvation you have to realize you are desperately in need of being saved. You are drowning. You are dying. As a sinner, you are among the worst.

Once you make “being good” the criteria for being a Christian, out of necessity you become the judge of others because you have to judge others in order to remain good in your own eyes. So if you have not come to this, (i.e. you are still pretty good in your own eyes), and you preach the Gospel (many do, from this perspective), it becomes a Gospel for other people – not for you. And something doesn’t ring true.

You also remain aloof to just about everybody because you can’t really know anyone for fear they might come to know you and find out your secret, that you really are a scoundrel like everybody else. It’s a lonely life. Believe me. It’s much better to be a sinner whom Jesus Christ loves and for whom he died so you can spread the Good News about him to other sinners like you. Then you have nothing to hide, and only Christ – and a lot of friends – to gain by telling the truth.

I think this is one of the things that made Billy Graham such a good evangelist. When he preached about the Gospel, he never excluded himself from needing it. He knew the Gospel wouldn’t preach if it were not, first and foremost, for him.

Which brings us back to being a Christian and accepting yourself as who you are. That’s why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:18 that we all have unveiled faces. We have nothing to hide because we are reflecting the face of Christ whom we worship in continual gratitude for our salvation.

Thank goodness. I never liked being a good Christian anyway.

“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:1

[Mr.Ho_chia]

Great! great day indeed to start it right. thanks once more............ :mrgreen: