.Friday, September 14, 2007 ; 11:19 PM -
.His Mercy is New everY mornInG.
I'm having special appetite for good old praise and worship song lately. Listening to the music sprinkled with beautiful piano/keyboard and percussion accompaniment, my soul is gently stirred back to the center of it all, Jesus Christ. It is amazing how human mind can be clouded by the most irrelevant things!!
This morning I woke up with the same issue of office outfit sneaking back into by brain. During lunch, I was appalled by the possibility of not having friends to eat lunch with. In the evening, I was battling the urge of rehearsing the many different possibilities that I will face at work. Now, as I am typing this, my mind is still filled with this irrelevant stuff. Praise the Lord. He told me I can manage my feelings and thoughts!! YEs, we can control them. The bible tells us to hold our thoughts captive. Not in the sense of putting them into jail, but we can make up our mind and heart not to let these thoughts come in! We, believers, are given the Holy Spirit that will help us go through each day. It is one thing to be tempted and another to give in to temptation.
This is not running away from the issues. I simply choose to ignore them and focus my thoughts on my Lord and His words. It's not like I can predict what will happen by rehearsing these thoughts in my mind. I don't know what will happen even 1 second from now! One thing I know, my Lord is in the midst of these. He is in control!!And most importantly, He refuses to let His people - believers of Jesus Christ, you and me - go away from Him. Even when we tried to struggle free, thinking or even screaming aloud that we are through with Him. God simply won't let us go. He is like a Lover that pursue His bride relentlessly.
Dealing with temptations and irrelevant thoughts are not like playing video games. You clear one stage and you won't go back to that stage. These will still come everyday. Thanks to God He has given us His abundant grace. I live a day at a time, asking God for mercy and strength to go through every day. I deal with the thoughts one at a time. Praise the Lord for His patience. He is good is all circumstances - good or bad.
I am still learning every step of it. Thank God it's not like step by step self- motivational/improvement ways where if I fail, the fault is on me coz I never do this or that step. Holy Spirit in me guides me and helps me along the way. Even when I fail, I can pick myself up from where I am and continue on.
Phil 3:12-14
Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of me and made me His own.
13I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
14I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward.
So what is grace? Undeserved favor given by our Lord Jesus Christ, living God, in all our circumstances. Not based on our good deeds nor based on our performances, but based on the love of God for every single one of us. Even unbelievers received grace. They don't know it, they think those are luck. I tell you, it is not luck. It is grace from God that is given to you so you will turn to Him for forgiveness and salvation. No more reasons for not accepting Jesus Christ as your God.
