Recommended Reading: Grace Walk by Steve McVey
I highly recommend this devotional book from Steve McVey. It is very liberating for someone like me who always fall into a default old system that I have to do my best on my own abilities to please God.
This book clearly explains from scriptures that God, thru the saving grace of Jesus Christ on the cross and out of love, extended us full grace to cling on to. That is why He said, His burden is light and His yoke is easy.
So no wonder, most Christians, myself included, nowadays, try their utmost best on their own capacities to follow God ending up with guilt, frustration, exasperation, feeling burdened and tired as they fall short instead of living out the Christian life joyfully by grace.
God says He looks into the heart more than anything. God knows our frailties and limitations that is why He already said that for those who have received Jesus in their hearts as their personal Lord and Savior : “His grace is ever sufficient for us” (1Corinthians 12:9-10).
Walking with God is never religious as I most often tended to do in the past. Christian walk is not about legalism where it would be a matter of how you should be able to follow 100% God’s laws at all times. Definitely, anyone sooner or later, shall often realize that he won’t make it no matter how good he tries. I found myself always falling short of what I am expected to do as a christian. On my own, yes it is impossible to please God. It is only by declaring and realizing that “I can’t do it, Lord”. This is key for God thru His son Jesus to step in and walk with us. That we may all enjoy His purpose-driven life and mission for us to the fullest with a transformation that God’s Holy Spirit Himself shall bring unto our lives.
Here is a synopsis and annotation of the book from Barnes and Noble:
May you be blessed by this video clip from Steve Mcvey, Head Pastor of Grace Walk Ministries.
“Remind yourself of how much your Father loves you with this selection of verses taken from Psalms, put to music with photographs.” - Steve Mcvey
Most of us “know” our God the Father but most of us too have yet to establish a personal relationship with Him by which truly, we could experience His grace, love peace and joy even during these trying times.
The busy life we have now and our defined goals, values, directions, priorities, among others, are the very things that keep us from pausing and giving ourselves the most important chance to re-focus our ways back to God’s perspectives.
Knowing God with our head is one thing but knowing God from our heart is the most important focus decision that we can ever make in this life of ours. Remember, God made and created us originally not for us to live our lives on our own but for His purposes. And no matter how you define that your purposes and ways are much better than God’s then sooner or later you shall realize this yourself. That is, after all, our God is the only one perfectly right. As the book of Proverbs 19:21 say: Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.
When you have been faced with a thought or a realization that “life is a chasing after the wind”, then this shall the be very moment that can start you off in a “grace” walk in Jesus Christ with an unimaginable joy and eternal bearing in Christ Jesus.
Give it a deep thought with your heart! Have a blessed week ahead!
This photo was taken by Robert Aichinger posted at http://www.sxc.hu
How do you see the cross?
I am blessed and thankful to have found this photo as it reminded me figuratively on how I tried to foolishly, mistakably and unmindfully, several years ago, see our Lord Jesus Christ from my perspective not His. I tried to find and see Him then, from how I wanted to visualize Him. I took our Lord in the past to suit and magically answer my needs not borne out of love but out of possible answers more often founded on wants and quick fix solutions. I practically focused on the cross and Jesus as my “genie” which often ended up in frustration. Why, because the more I prayed then my way towards God, the more distant and unresponsive seemingly He was to me. I was developing a prayer attitude with wrong motives and not seeking His will and wisdom perfectly fit for me and His purposes. I forgot that He is God and my Creator and I was just fashioned by Him for His glory.
Realizing this, I humbly asked for His grace that He may reveal Himself more meaningfully. What I had with God during that time, was a mechanical often empty relationship founded on traditional religiosity and not out of true love.
Then by God’s loving grace and mercy, I finally saw Him not from my eyes but this time from my heart, as God Himself says in Romans 10:10
“for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation”.
The same blinding flash of light blocking my viewpoint to see the empty cross in the picture, ran parallel to the selfish priorities, bondages and “barriers” in life that became distractions from my focus on God. Not only was my viewing angle blocked but I totally almost missed out on the saving sacrifice that Jesus did for me and all of us on the cross, 2,000 years ago by His death and victorious resurrection.
In John 14:6, Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
As the beautiful song Amazing Grace puts it: ” I was blind but now I see”. Can you “see” the cross amidst the distracting flash? I pray that you do just like I did years ago. See from your heart and not from your eyes. Morever, I pray that you do not only ponder but more receptively, believe, trust and confess that Jesus is Lord and Saviour. Make your relationship with Christ a personal one.
Believe you me, the journey with Jesus shall indeed be life-changing. Only from a see-thru viewpoint of the empty cross can you experience why God’s saving grace is hands-down amazing!
Have a blessed week ahead!
Trust in the LORD with all your heart. And do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5-6 (New American Standard Bible)
realjeffsays:
“Did You Know? The progress of information technology.
I’m fairly certain I’ve posted this before, but it’s worthy of an encore.”
Very very interesting video indeed! Data shared were very enlightening and informative. Starts with a question: “Did you know?”.
With all this encompassing technology burst, one-click information sharing, breakthroughs, non-stop expansion, exponential growth, non-stop chasing for information aggregation, hosting, processing, lightning-fast delivery and eye-popping world population stats —- the clip ends with an abstract: “What does this all mean?”
I asked a similar parallel philosophical question myself several years ago: Where will all these lead to? In fact I asked something worse: Do all these make sense after all? Seemingly it is a chasing after the wind as the book of Ecclesiastes shares. And I remembered that I just became more anxious and perplexed with endless questions..
No wonder now, the clips says Google registers 31 billion searches per month. The outpouring of queries itself propels the need for continuous information and answers.
Well my philosophical query became a spiritual resolve with much more meaningful appreciation. Rick Warren’s Purpose-driven Life book was a breather. It gave a fuller perspective. No wonder the book sold so many millions to mirror and answer several millions who had questions: scientists, students, doctors, businessmen, celebrities, magnates, poor people, across borders, ages, genders and so on.
I just stopped asking when I started trusting and believing not from my mind and eyes but from my heart. Everything starts and started with God, and shall end according to His purposes … as I paraphrase from Colossians 1:16.
Via Jeff Says
Not My Photo
Well, here I am on tumblr!
With the several times that I have seen my eldest daughter get so delighted along with her 4th-year high school classmates on the cooler, more intuitive and interesting features of tumblr over the other social networking sites, I finally opted to try this out.
Firstly, though, the photo displayed for my profile is not me nor mine. I chose it though for my profile display as this is how I want to start out from tumblr. It is to remind myself always have an attitude of thanks and praise to our dear Lord, Jesus Christ.
At my age of nearly half a century old, I could not stop but pause and look up with thanksgiving how gracious and loving our God is. Everytime I open my eyes every morning and see that I breathe air that comes from Him, I can’t stop saying thank you Lord for this life you have lent and extended me that I have so often taken for granted in the past.
I see my wife and 2 daughters and I can’t help but say thanks further Lord for my family. Then the rest of the family, relatives, friends come across my mind that all the more add up towards an attitude of further appreciation.
About me
Firstly, the photo displayed for my profile is not my picture. I chose it though to always remind myself have an attitude of thanks and praise to our dear Lord Jesus Christ.At my age of past 50 years, I could not stop but pause, look up with thanksgiving how gracious and loving our God is. Everytime I open my eyes every morning and see that I breathe free air that comes from Him, I can’t stop saying thank you Lord for this life you have lent and extended me that I have so often taken for granted in the past.
I see my wife and 2 daughters and I can’t help but say thanks further Lord for my family. Then the rest of the family, relatives, friends come across my mind that all the more add up towards an attitude of appreciation.
I act like this because the past years have been the lowest points in my business and corporate life yet these are the most meaningful and joyful moments when our good Lord has enhanced my perspective, values, priorities and walk.
A dear first cousin of mine in the US, gifted me with a book called, Grace Walk Experience by Steve Mcvey, and indeed it was a walk-thru that molded and humbled me further recognizing the amazing unmerited grace that God has extend me and everyone of us who responds to His word.
Well, as I hopefully continue on blogging, re-blogging, sharing and posting with tumblr, my prayer is that I may be able to enthusiastically (which by the way, was originally taken from the greek “en-theos siasm” , meaning in God’s Spirit) talk about things from an outlook of how God wants me to see things from His perspective.
