“ Tea!

 Bless ordinary everyday afternoon tea!” 

― Agatha Christie

When nothing is happening

the content of our own soul comes up

with a great inspiration or discouragement.

"Why are you cast down, o my soul?

And why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him

for the help of His countenance." 

Psalm 42:5

Birds sing in the morning

 to "mark their presence to others in the area".
They sing to other birds.

It's not inherited, they have to learn their song.

It's estimated that there are almost 5000 different

kinds of songbirds in the world.

I guess the learning of their song is motivated by

their instinct for survival. 

I'm worried about people who don't like singing.

They will work hard to stop others' songs, too.

With our singing we worship God.

Grateful heart sings continually.

The book of Psalms is all about singing.

"I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever."

Psalm 89:1

I will sing, I will sing, I will sing...

Convictions

mean that we already have made up our mind

about certain issues. They are not negotiable.

Situations nor suddenly changed circumstances

have no power to influence our choices.

We learn to live our lives in the light.

When somebody turns off the lights, 

we continue living right and truthfully.

Moments don't last long.

"For His anger is but for a moment,

His favor is for life;

Weeping may endure for a night,

but joy comes in the morning."

Psalm 30:5

We all are waiting to wake up in that
never-ending morning.

Some truths we don’t like.

Maybe it’s embarrassing or inconvenient.

 Maybe it just challenges us to take responsibility

 over something that we have been

 neglecting for too long.

God stopped a man who was resisting

 him in his own goodness. 

Saul was too good for God.

 He claimed that

he didn’t need forgiveness from God.

 In his own righteousness he ended up 

persecuting God’s people.

God stopped him with a supernatural intervention

on his way from Jerusalem to Damascus.

God spoke from heaven,

”It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” 

Acts 26:14

Saul gave up and became Paul, 

which means little.

That’s what truth does to us.

It brings us to a small place.

The more you fight against the truth,

 the more painful it becomes to you. 

You will be hurting yourself.

The truth is not for us to be discussed,

 but to be obeyed.

Was Jesus lying, when he said, ”I am the Truth.”

He actually is the inconvenient truth that

 continues to challenge the whole mankind daily.

"I will fear no evil."

Psalm 23:4

The world is such a dangerous place.

Wherever you look you see danger.

 Even the earth under us can be shaken

 and instantly swallow our frail bodies,

 which are miraculously surviving

in these constant battles and conflicts.

It's amazing that we are walking on this

 globe and not falling into the space.

 It's a miracle that the blood in our veins 

continues to flow. It's a shock to understand 

that an average human being has over

 100 trillion microbes in and on his body,

Wow, that's a lot of traffic and

 a lot of potential accidents.

I'm worshiping my Maker and Savior.

"The whole world thinks that way!"

"The whole world knows it!"

exclamation used to refer to just a couple of 

family members or a small group of friends.

Nowadays it looks like the whole world has been 

united to find out about our privacy.

Everybody is listening to everybody's secrets.

Obviously the world is being united once again.

The previous times have definitely left their marks

on us. Remember the tower of Babylon? How about 

the crowds in Jerusalem, crying out in unison,

"Crucify him" ?

Control in the name of security is man's final attempt 

to unite the mankind into a godless utopia.

"Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

 Revelation 22:20

"Wherever you've been, 

whatever you've done, God loves you."

That's the message of an old song.

Is that too much promised?

Doesn't God want us to be right,

even when we know that we cannot be sinless? 

Doesn't  he want us, at least, to try?

Isn't it better to be imperfect by trying to be perfect

than to be imperfect by not trying at all? Hmm...

How finished is the Finished Work after all?

The more we think about it, the more we understand 

about the dimensions of God's love for us.

He loves us solemnly (I love this word!!!) based on

the perfectly finished work of salvation by Christ

on the cross.

I'm in love with God again.

Creativity Needed

Getting an Ex Nihilo haircut

 by a Bangladeshi barber in Doha, Qatar.

When things don't depend on you,

you are free from the stress of guilt,

but it no way means that things always go well.

Actually, most of things in the world don't go well

at all, even thought the choir of nations endlessly

sing around us, "Everything's gonna be all right."

I'm sure these were the last words that were told

to so many of those who now populate our

ever-growing cemeteries around the world.

It's gonna go well only, if you can say today,

"For me to live is Christ and to die is gain."

Philippians 1:19-21

It looks so different in the morning.

Darkness shrinks our world.

It could be a trial or maybe a long battle with sickness,

injustice, sin...When darkness surrounds us, we

easily loose our vision for the future.

Failures seem final, obstacles too difficult to overcome.

Darkness hides all ways of escape from us.

Then comes the morning.

Everything looks different in the morning.

Wait for the morning.

Then you will see.

"Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed,

because His compassions fail not.

They are new morning;

Great is your faithfulness."

Lamentations 3:22-23

Resisting Temptations

Jesus taught very radically

how to resist temptations in Matthew 5, 

" If your right eye causes you to sin,

pluck it out(you do it) and cast it from you...

If your right hand..."

Hundreds of years later someone encouraged

us to do it to others.

That's the big difference between man-made

religion and grace.

Spiritual indifference

and spiritual dullness are common trends,

that show up without any efforts from our side.

The fallen nature of man doesn't appreciate 

spiritual activities. It's easier and more natural

just to eat and drink and be merry.

Without the revelation of the Spirit of God 

we don't see the visible, we don't understand

the conceptual, should I say "the abstract".

But the Spirit searches all things, even the deep 

things of God.

The Samaritan woman said to Jesus,

"You have nothing to draw with and the well

is deep." John 4:11

Isn't it amazing, that she was actually talking 

to the Creator of all things, the water , the well,

the earth under the well and her.

Does God appreciate hard work?

Will power, discipline and hard work are highly

appreciated in the professional world.

Work is not a curse, but work became hard 

after the fall of man.

"In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread 

till you return to the ground."

Genesis 3:19

Grace does not nullify hard work.

Paul testified that grace had caused him to 

work more abundantly than anyone else.

 I Corinthians 15:10

He was not talking about the good, religious works,

that some mistakenly consider to be the condition

for salvation.

He was talking about his work

 as a preacher and evangelist. 

His schedule was filled with divine opportunities,

day and night. This is the kind of work that faith 

produces. It's the work of God in us, through us

and often disregard of us.

Friendliness

is mentioned in I Peter 1:7 as one of the worthy goals

on the way to Christian maturity.

Christians have all the reason to be friendly, gentle and loving

to all people disregard of their race, religion, political opinion

or morals. In the cold world it often is interpreted as being

naive or unwise. Once you get to know true believers you

find out that we are very soft from outside, but hard from inside.

We have firm convictions about issues, but we don’t impose

them by force on others. How could we?

Our Lord had nails piercing his hands and he cried out,

“Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.”

He is a friendly Savior.