Can He?

The Israelites doubted God after He had opened up the Red Sea. Two months after this miracle was done, they started to forget. Can the one who opened the sea give us meat? Can the one who follows us with fire and in a cloud, give us food?.

Food?!!!! How can the potency of God be so much questioned? Yet, we behave just like they did; Can the one who saw me through my studies give me a job? Can the one who saved me from death give me a wife? We seem to be so much overwhelmed by our present circumstances that we fail to see the bigger picture that God sees. We might attribute it to the rush of the moment, but in those times we need to seek a quiet solitary place to reflect and remember all that He has done.

May we, today, view things through His eyes; seeing the bigger picture. 

I AM

I AM
I did it for you
and you were pleased
you praised and danced
to your bodies relief.
You were excited
and smiled all day
as light as a feather,
joyous beyond measure.
My praise was on your lips
and you cried:
all glory to I AM.


Then the tough times came,
rushing like a wind
tossing like the waves.
Dilemma on every side
fear and doubt,
knocking at your door
peering through the windows
Then you forgot that, I AM.


I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
yet, I AM.
When the winds blow, I am present,
because, I AM.
When doubts approach, I stand by you
because,I AM.
I am quiet then, but it does not mean
I am not, I AM.
I was there, I am here and I will be there,
because, I AM.


Let it ring in your ears
Let it linger like an echo
Let it be the first thing you hear, as the cock crows
Let it be behind, in front of your mind
Let it be written on your hearts:
I AM!!.....I AM!!!

The window to the soul

Have you ever watched an ice cream commercial and said to yourself, “I could go for a cone right now!” Maybe you have a lot of self-control, and you think, “Well, that really isn’t a good idea.” But you may also find yourself drifting into the frozen section of the grocery store next time you shop. That little inspiration came into your mind, became part of your thoughts, grew into a kind of craving, and then affected your actions.

This is what Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel reading. No, there weren’t ice cream commercials in the ancient Middle East, but Jesus was still clear that what we take in through our eyes shapes the focus of our hearts and even our actions.

Think for a minute about how many images you take in during the day: television, magazines, billboards, Facebook. While many are enjoyable or harmless, some are downright offensive. If a fifteen-
second commercial can make you want ice cream, how much more can a longer movie depicting extreme violence or impure situations influence our thoughts?

The good news is that these images don’t have to dominate our minds. For instance, we can learn to guard our eyes by deciding what we will and will not watch. And in those cases where it’s just unavoidable, we can learn how to catch the images before they become a part of our thought process. Blocking unhealthy images and filling our environment with wholesome and uplifting ones can help to keep our thoughts pure and full of light.

You might be surprised at how a simple awareness of what images you allow or don’t allow will give you more peace and a sense of steadiness in your heart.

Today, think about the many images that you see in a given day. Then, just for fun, get a piece of paper and a red and green marker. All morning, pay attention to what you are seeing. If it is an image you should filter out, make a red mark. If it is a good image, make a green mark. Then, during lunch, take stock. Are there too many red marks? What can you do about it? How can you make your eyes as clear as possible?

“Lord, help me to guard my eyes and turn my heart to you.”

Taken from wau.org

Personal Pentecost

On Sunday, many churches celebrated  Pentecost, commemorating the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the occupants of the upper room. This point marked a significant change in the lives of the disciples as they were emboldened to go out and "make disciples of all nations" (Matt 28:19). Indeed the change in attitude of the disciples in the pre-Pentecost duration and the post-Pentecost era is very significant.  It is worth noting that the same Holy Spirit who was present in those days to empower them, is still present with us in the modern day church.

However, we seem not to be experiencing the same awe-struck situations the Christians of old encountered. I believe that this is resulting from the fact that we have not learned to cooperate with the Holy Spirit's voice in our lives. Jesus said in John 16:12-15 that “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you." (emphasis, mine).

Thus it is obvious that the Holy Spirit speaks to us. He has a voice. His communication can be through external impressions and signs- Luke 3:22; "and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”, or it can also be through internal impressions in our hearts and minds- Acts 13:2; "While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”  I am of the opinion that the external signs are easier to identify but the internal communication is a bit of a challenge.

Jesus, in John 10:27 said "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me" From this verse, I believe that by virtue of us being Christian, we have the innate ability to hear the promptings of the Lord through the Holy Spirit, in our hearts. The challenge, now, is our capability to fellowship with Him, such that this fellowship matures into a relationship and finally into a friendship whereby we can completely listen and obey His voice.

So how do we know it is His voice? Well I believe that, that prompting, voice, conviction, etc we have, that we sometimes refer to as "something told me...", is Him. His direction must be in resonance with the word of God and I believe, this causes an inner peace which we can testify of. Jesus in John 16:13 said "When the Holy Spirit who is truth, comes, he shall guide you into all truth, for he will not be presenting his own ides, but will be passing on to you what he has heard.  He will tell you about the future.  He shall praise me"

I believe that to establish a strong relationship with the Holy Spirit, we simply need to submit our will totally to Him. To be more intimate with the Him, we need to spend time in prayer, studying scripture,  partaking in communion and doing good works. I have come to realize that He does not force us to take His directions but when we do, it's for our best interest. Jesus in John 14, described Him as a Helper. In verse 16 He said: "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever". He is available for our own benefit. I pray that we decide to submit to Him. To submit, is to accept or yield to a superior force or to the authority or will of another person. His will must become our will. Yet in His gentleness and love, He leaves the decision to us. Lets choose to submit today!!.

Recently I chanced upon a hymn written by Edwin Hatch to the Holy Spirit. I pray the lyrics speaks to you as it did to me. God bless. Enjoy your fellowship with Him:

1. Breathe on me, Breath of God,
   Fill me with life anew,
   That I may love what Thou dost love,
   And do what Thou wouldst do.
2. Breathe on me, Breath of God,
   Until my heart is pure,
   Until with Thee I have one will,
   To do and to endure.
3. Breathe on me, Breath of God,
   Till I am wholly Thine,
   Until this earthly part of me
   Glows with Thy fire divine.
4. Breathe on me, Breath of God,
   So shall I never die,
   But live with Thee the perfect life
   Of Thine eternity.

Take hold of the opportunities

Paul must have been pretty angry to shake out his garments and give up on the Jews in Corinth. But look! Just a few lines later, we read that the ruler of the synagogue and his whole family were converted, forming the foundation of the Corinthian church. How on earth did that happen? A man named Titus!
Titus was living a life that bridged two worlds. He was a Gentile, but he practiced Jewish customs and worshipped God. Despite all the opposition Paul received, Titus offered him a place to stay—and his house just happened to be right next door to the synagogue!

Coincidence? Probably not. God positioned Titus between two groups of people, and when Titus opened his door to Paul, he opened the door to an entire community of believers. Paul’s proximity to the synagogue, and his friendship with Titus, undoubtedly gave him numerous opportunities to keep sharing the gospel with the Jews who worshipped right next door to him. And it worked! From Paul’s later writings, we know that a number of Jews ended up joining the Corinthian church.

Maybe your life doesn’t bridge two worlds as obviously as Titus’ did. Still, think about the different groups of people you interact with. Think about your family, your job, your neighborhood, your church, the gym, and so on. Have you ever thought that God might have positioned you just perfectly in the midst of all these people to be a door-opener for the gospel?
Today, take some time to map out the many different connections you have. You could start by making a list or drawing a kind of web that illustrates the many groups you are linked to. Next, think and pray about how you can open the way for the gospel in each of these links. Then, look for ways to take advantage of these connections.

You may have to adjust your thinking a bit before you can see all the connections that God has placed in your life. But ask the Spirit to help you. And if you get stuck, just remember Titus. He simply invited Paul to stay with him. Even a small act of hospitality can do wonders!

“Lord, help me to open doors for the gospel wherever I go. Teach me how to bring people closer to you.”

~Taken from www.wau.org

He Speaks

Years ago, a large American brokerage firm boasted in commercials, “When [we] speak, people listen.” The ads usually featured a young professional bringing a restaurant’s chatter to a halt simply by mentioning where he worked.

God speaks to us every day, in many different ways, though sometimes it’s hard to hear him through the “crowd noise” going on around us. But he is speaking. He can speak to us even through someone who isn’t speaking directly to us at all! This is what God did in the jail where Paul and Silas were imprisoned. Despite their wounds from a severe beating, they sang hymns to the Lord. The jailer might well have gone to sleep that night listening to the apostles’ praise. And the other prisoners, presumably dangerous criminals, didn’t mock these two strangers. Instead, they listened, enraptured.

Although the singing wasn’t directed at them, the other prisoners heard and were touched. The apostles’ praise was so profound, in fact, that “the foundations of the jail shook” (Acts 16:26). It was both an unexpected place and an unexpected time, but God used the earthquake and the hymns to speak to both the jailer and the prisoners that night. The prisoners were so touched that they didn’t run for their freedom when they had the chance. And it’s likely that God used the prisoners’ response to speak to the jailer and bring him closer to conversion.

We don’t know when or how God will speak to us next. It may be through a homily directed at us or through a hymn we sing at Mass. But maybe it will be through an overheard conversation, a sentence we read by chance, or a billboard we see on the road. God’s word to you today may echo softly in your thoughts or occur as a powerful stirring of your heart. No matter how he chooses to speak to you, one thing is certain: he will speak!

So try your best to be alert. Listen for what God will say next. Who knows? Maybe it will be a message that rocks your world!

~Taken from www.wau,org

No, to pornography!!

• • 
    Over the years pornography has gradually crept into our society and in some communities has been accepted fully as an industry. In 2006, estimated revenues for the sex-related entertainment business were just under $13 billion in the United States. By 2015, mobile adult content and services are expected to reach $2.8 billion per year, mobile adult subscriptions will reach nearly $1 billion, and mobile adult video consumption on tablets will triple. (http://www.covenanteyes.com/pornstats/). The pornography industry is estimated to be $93 billion world wide. Some alarming statistics I found on this growing canker are as follows:
    Internet pornography in the United States is a $3 billion industry
  • Every second…
  • $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography
    
    • 28,258 Internet viewers are viewing pornography
    • 372 Internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines (Internet Filter Review, 2006)
    • Every 39 minutes, a new pornographic video is made in the United States. (Internet Filter Review, 2006)
  • A recent content analysis of the 50 best-selling adult videos revealed that across all scenes:
  • 3,376 verbal and/or physically aggressive acts were observed.  
    
    • On average, scenes had 11.52 acts of either verbal of physical aggression, ranging from none to 128.
    • 48 percent of the 304 scenes analyzed contained verbal aggression, while more than 88 percent showed physical aggression.  
    • 72 percent of aggressive acts were perpetrated by men.
    • 94 percent of aggressive acts were committed against women. (Bridges, A., Wosnitzer, R., Scharrer, E., Sun, C., & Liberman, R. (in press).  Aggression and sexual behavior in best-selling pornography: A content analysis update. Violence Against Women.). 
    • The use of pornographic material dates back through the years to the Victorian era. This shows how old the depravity of man and the numbing of his conscience has persisted. Why do people engage in pornography? . People watch porn because of various reasons namely: excitement, curiosity, arousal, entertainment, to "learn", to mention but a few. Most of these reasons I can find no justification for.
      
      Effects of porn 
      
      

      1. Porn Contributes to Social and Psychological Problems Within Men 

      Anti-pornography activist, Gail Dines, notes that young men who become addicted to porn, “neglect their schoolwork, spend huge amounts of money they don’t have, become isolated from others, and often suffer depression.” (Pornland, 93). Dr. William Struthers, who has a PhD in biopsychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago, confirms some of these and adds more, finding that men who use porn become controlling, highly introverted, have high anxiety, narcissistic, curious, have low self-esteem, depressed, dissociative, distractible (Wired for Intimacy, 64-65). Ironically, while viewing porn creates momentary intensely pleasurable experiences, it ends up leading to several negative lingering psychological experiences.
      
      

      2. Porn Rewires the Male Brain 

      Struthers elaborates,
      In a similar vein regarding porn’s effect upon the brain, Naomi Wolf writes in her article, "The Porn Myth,"
      
      

      3. Porn Turns Sex Into Masturbation 

      Sex becomes self-serving. It becomes about your pleasure and not the self-giving, mutually reciprocating intimacy that it was designed for.
      
      

      4. Porn Demeans and Objectifies Women 

      This occurs from hard-core to soft-core pornography. Pamela Paul, in her book Pornified, quoting the research of one psychologist who has researched pornography at Texas A&M, writes,
      Paul references one experiment that revealed a rather shocking further effect of porn: “men and women who were exposed to large amounts of pornography were significantly less likely to want daughters than those who had none. Who would want their own little girl to be treated that way?” (80).
      
      By inundating girls and women with the message that their most worthy attribute is their sexual hotness and crowding out other messages, pop culture is grooming them just like an individual perpetrator would. It is slowly chipping away at their self-esteem, stripping them of a sense of themselves as whole human beings, and providing them with an identity that emphasizes sex and de-emphasizes every other human attribute (Pornland, 118).
      
      

      6. Porn Has a Numbing Effect Upon Reality

      It makes real sex and even the real world boring in comparison. It particularly anesthetizes the emotional life of a man. Paul comments,
      
      

      7. Porn Lies About What it Means to be Male and Female 

      Dines records how porn tells a false story about men and women. In the story of porn, women are “one-dimensional”–they never say no, never get pregnant, and can’t wait to have sex with any man and please them in whatever way imaginable (or even unimaginable). On the other hand, the story porn tells about men is that they are “soulless, unfeeling, amoral life-support systems for erect penises who are entitled to use women in any way they want. These men demonstrated zero empathy, respect, or love for the women they have sex with…(Pornland, xxiv).” (http://theresurgence.com/2011/11/19/7-negative-effects-of-porn).
      
       Spiritual implication
      During my reading and research, I realized the huge amount of pride and insolence the industry portrays. The confidence of partakers of the industry despite the obvious negative connotations, shows the level of demonic influence. I believe that every form of action which can not be controlled by the individual has a demonic backing. The spirit of lust which is pumped from the porn movies, sites, books, magazines, etc... causes people to keep on coming back to it over and over again. The underlying reason for many partakers in the industry are: hatred, want of attraction, desire for attention, broken homes, sexual abuse. All these reasons open up doors for demonic influence. Consequently these spirits are transmitted through which ever media. As a result, many people are exposed to such spirits over and over again.
      
      It is very obvious that we are constantly surrounded by pornography. From the music on our radios, movies and the useless tabloids hanging on the news stands. However, the scary reality is how porn is entering the church;  Some brothers and sisters are coming to church and raising up hands in worship and then going back home to watch porn on phones and laptops. We need to remember that porn is a huge lie the devil is using to trap Christians. Romans 12:1 says "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."
      
      Again Matthew 6:22-23 "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!"
      
      The Lord is calling us to absolute purity in Him. Viewing and engaging in pornography goes a long way to separate us from our creator and further opens demonic spiritual doorways in our lives, as earlier stated. The Lord is reminding us that true Love can only be found in Him. He gave us His son to express this love. Lets not throw all this away by rejecting His offer and seeking to find love elsewhere, especially in watching and engaging in porn.
      
      About His Love for us He says:
      
      
      1 John 4:9-12 

      In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
      
      

      Romans 5:8

      But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
      
      

      1 John 4:16

      So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
      
      

      Psalm 103:11

      For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him

      
      I pray that we will embrace God's Love truly and sincerely. God richly bless you.

      
      

      
      
      
       
      
       
      
  
  
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