Livin' only by Grace

I listed down my faith goals for this year when I joined the prayer and fasting last week. One of my faith goals is promotion. In our company, for you to be promoted, you have to meet certain requirements like 8 EEs in a 12-month period. (I know it's a jargon but EE simply means Exceed Expectation hehe). So you have to have 8 EEs (1 EE per month, not necessarily consecutive months) or so for you to be promoted from being a Process Associate to a Process Developer. I am yet to complete the 8 EEs but when by Boss and I had our coaching session two days ago, she said she already submitted my name for the promotion! Hooooray! I'm just stunned and I really don't know what to say. I'm just but grateful that God answered my prayers even though I still need one more EE. He is indeed the God of impossibilities! He's just amazing! You just have to believe and claim your inheritance! Indeed it is already there even before you ask =)

Jesus answered and said, ’You do not know what you ask’ —Matthew 20:22 There are times in your spiritual life when there is confusion, and the way out of it is not simply to say that you should not be confused. It is not a matter of right and wrong, but a matter of God taking you through a way that you temporarily do not understand. And it is only by going through the spiritual confusion that you will come to the understanding of what God wants for you. The Shrouding of His Friendship  (see  Luke 11:5-8 ). Jesus gave the illustration here of a man who appears not to care for his friend. He was saying, in effect, that is how the heavenly Father will appear to you at times. You will think that He is an unkind friend, but remember?He is not. The time will come when everything will be explained. There seems to be a cloud on the friendship of the heart, and often even love itself has to wait in pain and tears for the blessing of fuller fellowship and oneness. When God appe...

. . . and I will give you rest —Matthew 11:28 Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once, asking Him to re-establish your rest. Never allow anything to remain in your life that is causing the unrest. Think of every detail of your life that is causing the disintegration as something to fight against, not as something you should allow to remain. Ask the Lord to put awareness of Himself in you, and your self-awareness will disappear. Then He will be your all in all. Beware of allowing your self-awareness to continue, because slowly but surely it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is satanic. Don’t allow yourself to say, “Well, they have just misunderstood me, and this is something over which they should be apologizing to me; I’m sure I must have this cleared up with them already.” Learn to leave others alone regarding this. Simply ask the Lord to give you Christ-awareness, and He will steady you until your completeness in Him is abso...

Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha . . . saw him no more —2 Kings 2:11-12 It is not wrong for you to depend on your “Elijah” for as long as God gives him to you. But remember that the time will come when he must leave and will no longer be your guide and your leader, because God does not intend for him to stay. Even the thought of that causes you to say, “I cannot continue without my ’Elijah.’ ” Yet God says you must continue. Alone at Your “Jordan”  ( Kings 2:14 ). The Jordan River represents the type of separation where you have no fellowship with anyone else, and where no one else can take your responsibility from you. You now have to put to the test what you learned when you were with your “Elijah.” You have been to the Jordan over and over again with Elijah, but now you are facing it alone. There is no use in saying that you cannot go— the experience is here, and you must go. If you truly want to know whether or not God is the God your faith believes Him to...

He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side . . . —Mark 6:45 We tend to think that if Jesus Christ compels us to do something and we are obedient to Him, He will lead us to great success. We should never have the thought that our dreams of success are God’s purpose for us. In fact, His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have the idea that God is leading us toward a particular end or a desired goal, but He is not. The question of whether or not we arrive at a particular goal is of little importance, and reaching it becomes merely an episode along the way. What we see as only the process of reaching a particular end, God sees as the goal itself. What is my vision of God’s purpose for me? Whatever it may be, His purpose is for me to depend on Him and on His power  now . If I can stay calm, faithful, and unconfused while in the middle of the turmoil of life, the goal of the purpose of God is being accomplished in me. God is not working toward a ...

On this day of your life,   Mary-ees , we believe God wants you to know ... that God is there for you to hold on. Hold on to what is good, even if it's a handful of earth. Hold on to what you believe, even if it's a tree that stands by itself. Hold on to what you must do, even if it's a long way from here. Hold on to your faith, even if it's easier to let go. Hold on to God's hand.  

We walk by faith, not by sight —2 Corinthians 5:7 For a while, we are fully aware of God’s concern for us. But then, when God begins to use us in His work, we begin to take on a pitiful look and talk only of our trials and difficulties. And all the while God is trying to make us do our work as hidden people who are not in the spotlight. None of us would be hidden spiritually if we could help it. Can we do our work when it seems that God has sealed up heaven? Some of us always want to be brightly illuminated saints with golden halos and with the continual glow of inspiration, and to have other saints of God dealing with us all the time. A self-assured saint is of no value to God. He is abnormal, unfit for daily life, and completely unlike God. We are here, not as immature angels, but as men and women, to do the work of this world. And we are to do it with an infinitely greater power to withstand the struggle because we have been born from above. If we continually try to bring back those...

Beware of isolation; beware of the idea that you have to develop a holy life alone. It is impossible to develop a holy life alone; you will develop into an oddity and a peculiarism, into something utterly unlike what God wants you to be. The only way to develop spiritually is to go into the society of God’s own children, and you will soon find how God alters your set. God does not contradict our social instincts; He alters them.    Biblical Psychology, 189 L

I will give your life to you as a prize in all places, wherever you go —Jeremiah 45:5 This is the firm and immovable secret of the Lord to those who trust Him— "I will give your life to you . . . ." What more does a man want than his life? It is the essential thing. ". . . your life . . . as a prize . . ." means that wherever you may go, even if it is into hell, you will come out with your life and nothing can harm it. So many of us are caught up in exhibiting things for others to see, not showing off property and possessions, but our blessings. All these things that we so proudly show have to go. But there is something greater that can never go— the life that "is hidden with Christ in God" ( Colossians 3:3 ). Are you prepared to let God take you into total oneness with Himself, paying no more attention to what you call the great things of life? Are you prepared to surrender totally and let go? The true test of abandonment or surrender is in refusing t...

Do you seek great things for yourself? —Jeremiah 45:5 Are you seeking great things for yourself, instead of seeking to be a great person? God wants you to be in a much closer relationship with Himself than simply receiving His gifts— He wants you to get to know Him. Even some large thing we want is only incidental; it comes and it goes. But God never gives us anything incidental. There is nothing easier than getting into the right relationship with God, unless it is not God you seek, but only what He can give you. If you have only come as far as asking God for things, you have never come to the point of understanding the least bit of what surrender really means. You have become a Christian based on your own terms. You protest, saying, "I asked God for the Holy Spirit, but He didn’t give me the rest and the peace I expected." And instantly God puts His finger on the reason-you are not seeking the Lord at all; you are seeking something for yourself. Jesus said, "Ask, and...

.. .makes all the difference in the world. The special gift and ability of each creature defines its special limitations. ...so the woman who accepts the limitations of womanhood finds in those very limitations her gifts, her special calling--wings, in fact, which bear her up into perfect freedom, into the will of God. Single life may be only a stage of a life's journey, but even a stage is a gift. Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living.. . We accept and thank God for what is given, not allowing the not-given to spoil it. ..and it is in obedience to the command that we will find our full freedom. The freedom of the sailboat to move so swiftly and beautifully is the result of obedience to laws. She is doing the thing she was made for. She is free not by disobeying the rules but by obeying them. ..It meant not doing what they wanted to do in order to have something they wanted more. The freedom of the few was brought at the sacrifice of the many. The fact that I am a wo...

God called to him . . . . And he said, ’Here I am’ —Exodus 3:4 When God speaks, many of us are like people in a fog, and we give no answer. Moses’ reply to God revealed that he knew where he was and that he was ready. Readiness means having a right relationship to God and having the knowledge of where we are. We are so busy telling God where we would like to go. Yet the man or woman who is ready for God and His work is the one who receives the prize when the summons comes. We wait with the idea that some great opportunity or something sensational will be coming our way, and when it does come we are quick to cry out, "Here I am." Whenever we sense that Jesus Christ is rising up to take authority over some great task, we are there, but we are not ready for some obscure duty. Readiness for God means that we are prepared to do the smallest thing or the largest thing— it makes no difference. It means we have no choice in what we want to do, but that whatever God’s plans may be,...

Be still, and know that I am God . . . —Psalm 46:10 Perseverance is more than endurance. It is endurance combined with absolute assurance and certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen. Perseverance means more than just hanging on, which may be only exposing our fear of letting go and falling. Perseverance is our supreme effort of refusing to believe that our hero is going to be conquered. Our greatest fear is not that we will be damned, but that somehow Jesus Christ will be defeated. Also, our fear is that the very things our Lord stood for— love, justice, forgiveness, and kindness among men— will not win out in the end and will represent an unattainable goal for us. Then there is the call to spiritual perseverance. A call not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately, knowing with certainty that God will never be defeated. If our hopes seem to be experiencing disappointment right now, it simply means that they are being purified. Every hope or dream of the hu...

1 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help! 2 My help cometh from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. 3 He will not permit thy foot to be moved; He that keepeth thee will not slumber. 4 Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The LORD is thy keeper; the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand. 6 The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil; He shall preserve thy soul. 8 The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore. Psalm 21

If I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all —Philippians 2:17 Are you willing to sacrifice yourself for the work of another believer— to pour out your life sacrificially for the ministry and faith of others? Or do you say, "I am not willing to be poured out right now, and I don’t want God to tell me how to serve Him. I want to choose the place of my own sacrifice. And I want to have certain people watching me and saying, ’Well done.’ " It is one thing to follow God’s way of service if you are regarded as a hero, but quite another thing if the road marked out for you by God requires becoming a "doormat" under other people’s feet. God’s purpose may be to teach you to say, "I know how to be abased . . ." ( Philippians 4:12 ). Are you ready to be sacrificed like that? Are you ready to be less than a mere drop in the bucket-to be so totally insignificant that no one remembers you ...

If God so clothes the grass of the field . . . , will He not much more clothe you . . . ? —Matthew 6:30 A simple statement of Jesus is always a puzzle to us because we will not be simple. How can we maintain the simplicity of Jesus so that we may understand Him? By receiving His Spirit, recognizing and relying on Him, and obeying Him as He brings us the truth of His Word, life will become amazingly simple. Jesus asks us to consider that "if God so clothes the grass of the field . . ." how "much more" will He clothe you, if you keep your relationship right with Him? Every time we lose ground in our fellowship with God, it is because we have disrespectfully thought that we knew better than Jesus Christ. We have allowed "the cares of this world" to enter in ( Matthew 13:22 ), while forgetting the "much more" of our heavenly Father. "Look at the birds of the air . . ." ( Matthew 6:26 ). Their function is to obey the instincts God placed wit...

I have appeared to you for this purpose . . . —Acts 26:16 The vision Paul had on the road to Damascus was not a passing emotional experience, but a vision that had very clear and emphatic directions for him. And Paul stated, "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision" ( Acts 26:19 ). Our Lord said to Paul, in effect, "Your whole life is to be overpowered or subdued by Me; you are to have no end, no aim, and no purpose but Mine ." And the Lord also says to us, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go . . ." ( John 15:16 ). When we are born again, if we are spiritual at all, we have visions of what Jesus wants us to be. It is important that I learn not to be "disobedient to the heavenly vision" not to doubt that it can be attained. It is not enough to give mental assent to the fact that God has redeemed the world, nor even to know that the Holy Spirit can make all that Jesus did a reality in my life. I mus...

.. .so that the next generation will be different.. . heard this line years ago.. .but it's still ringing in my mind.. . the reward cannot be counted.. . but a sacrifice should be made.. . STAND OUT! Be different so that the next generation will be different.. .

many people say that promises are made to be broken.. . can't blame them.. .people are people.. . some people just find it hard to keep their promises.. . even I.. .sometimes I find it hard to believe that things will come true just as He promised.. . sometimes when I come to God in prayer, yes, I do tell Him that He promised this.. .and that.. .but sometimes my heart no longer have the strength to believe.. . until I realized just this morning that indeed Jesus never fails.. . when I no longer know what to read in the Bible, I always start with Genesis (well of course, it's the first book, you know.. .haha!) and every time I start to read it again, the impact of His Words are no longer the same.. .it's different every time! (so sweet!) and so this morning, as I was reading.. . I was just fascinated at how God kept His promise to a man.. . and because of that we're still alive today.. . i believe you're familiar with the story of Noah (the guy who built an ark) yeah...

.. .thoughts about where to go.. .what to do after the boards.. .came to my mind as I attended the first day of the final coaching at Cathedral of Praise, UN.. . for a while I've been lax.. . =] it seems like, i somehow set aside the "nursing stuff" haha.. . for the past months, it's like i was content with what i'm doing.. .i'm like "content" with what I already have.. . i taught for a while.. . presently running a little business.. .earning a little.. .seems like it's okay already.. . then suddenly it dawned on me that I'm settling already for the second best.. . before this, i just wanted to finish the board exam then do my stuff again.. . second best.. . yeah.. . second best.. .there's nothing wrong with my current situation.. .it's good.. .but His plans are the best.. .THE BEST.. . and sometimes, along our way, we stumble on something and stay there for a little while.. .forgetting what lies ahead.. . but it's your choice.. ...