Book of Proverbs

One my favorite books in the bible is the book of Proverbs. And for this week, I will be sharing memory verses from the book of Proverbs with "fear of the Lord" phrase. So join me as I memorize/review these verses everyday. May we have a blessed and fruitful week ahead of us.

Our first memory verse for this week is in Proverbs 1:7. The Bible says, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. "

Every person I believe has his/her own fear. Many have fear of heights (Acrophobia). Some are afraid of spiders (Arachnophobia) and there are so many phobias that a person might have. But the fear mention in Proverbs 1:7 is different from these fears. The fear here is the kind of fear that is accompanied by love. The kind of fear that would compel us to obey God's instructions. The kind of fear that would give as the guilt feeling even before we commit an intentional sin. The fear that would make us grieve whenever we continue to disobey God's Word. If we implant this kind of fear in our lives, we won't have any other fear. We will have the courage to do great things for God. We would be fearless to follow every commandment that God has given us. And these instructions and commandments is for our learning and for our own good.

But this is also the fear that fools do not want to have in their life. Because fools do not want to be instructed. They believe that they know everything and they can run their own lives which is really foolishness.

Let us continue to pray that God will cultivate the Godly fear in us.

Pray Secretly

For today's memory verse, I want to share with you Matthew 6:6. The Bible say, "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

In this verse we are instructed to pray secretly. When we pray we do not pray to the people around us but to our loving Father. We are not talking to the people around us but to our only wise God. Hence, there is no need for us to broadcast our prayer and to let others know that we are praying. For when we do that, we might get the glory that is due to God.

One reason I am thinking why God gave this instruction is to help us concentrate while we are praying. If we are alone and we shut the door close, there is less distraction and our mind can focus more to our God.

If we obey this, God's answer will be given to us openly and even without telling to others explicitly, they will definitely see God's reward to us.

May you have a rewarding day!

A Love Theory

I've been tagged by Mommy Joy of A Momma's Journal with this meme. This is my first time to be tagged. I tried to follow the instruction and the result is true.

Why should the wedding ring be worn on the fourth finger? There is a beautiful and convincing explanation given by the Chinese.....

* Thumb represents your Parents.
* Second (Index) finger represents your Siblings.
* Middle finger represents your-Self.
* Fourth (Ring) finger represents your Life Partner. & the . . .
* Last (Little) finger represents your children





Firstly, open your palms (face to face), bend the middle fingers and hold them together - back to back.
Secondly, open and hold the remaining three fingers and the thumb - tip to tip. (As shown in the figure below):
Now, try to separate your thumbs (representing the parents)..., they will open, because your parents are not destined to live with you lifelong, and have to leave you sooner or later. Please join your thumbs as before and separate your Index fingers (representing siblings)...., they will also open, because your brothers and sisters will have their own families and will have to lead their own separate lives.

Now join the Index fingers and separate your Little fingers (representing your children)...., they will open too, because the children also will get married and settle down on their own some day. Finally, join your Little fingers, and try to separate your Ring fingers (representing your spouse). You will be surprised to see that you just CANNOT..... because Husband & Wife have to remain together all their lives - through thick and thin!! Please try this out and pass............. ISN'T THIS A LOVELY THEORY?

Now, I want to share this theory MEME to:

IT Mom's Corner, Lourdes' Mia, Brown Pinay & A Blessed Life

When should we pray

Today's memory verse is in Psalm 55:17. Psalm 55:17 says, "Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice." In this verse, the Bible tells us the time we should pray. Not only in the morning, but also in the evening, and noon.

In our busy life as mother, wife and sometimes as employee, we neglect our prayer life. We forget that our strength and power comes from our mighty God. We put our prayer life in the end of our priority list.

Anyway, it is not too late to start. We can re-prioritize our schedules and make our prayer life and other things for God on the top our list.

Have a prayerful day ahead!

Prayer in the Morning

What is the first thing you do in the morning? Some people would answer, "I open my eyes". Great! What an intelligent answer

Seriously speaking, what comes to your mind whenever you woke up everymorning? Is it the yesterday's unfinished tasks in the office? Is the unending household chores? Is it the filing unpaid bills?

Would you agree that whatever your comes to your mind the very minute you open your eyes is your God at that moment? So if the first thing that popped-up your mind is your household chores, your god is your house. If your tasks in the office, then your god is your work?

In Psalm 5:3, The great kind David declares that he would pray unto God in the morning. And this is our memory verse today. Just to help us be reminded that we ought to pray every morning. The mere fact that God allows us to wake up is something that we should already be thanked for. And we should also seek God's guidance and protection for the entire day.

This is my personal experience. Whenever I forgot to pray before I leave my bed, I noticed that my day is chaotic. I messed with my job. My mood is not good and I do not finished anything.

That is how God reminds me that I did not prioritize Him.

So for today's memory verse, we will qoute David's prayer in Psalm 5:3. The Bible says, "My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up."

May you have a prayerful day!

Pray Without Ceasing

Our next theme would be about Prayers. I will share verses with word(s) containing the root word "pray". So the word maybe prayers, praying, prayerful and anyword with "pray" in it.

To begin with, let us start with the easiest verse. Our memory verse for today is in I Thessalonians 5:17. The Word of God says, "Pray without ceasing."

Even when I was still a kid, I always hear this verse, "pray without ceasing." But I do not fully understand it. Only when the word "cease" was added to my vocabulary, I realized the meaning of the verse. But another question popped-up in my mind? Is a non-stop praying possible? Then God allows me to read an article which answers this question. The answer is YES. Praying is talking to GOD. As the acronym ACTS implies, it is an Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. And these things can be done simultaneously with the other things that we are doing. We can silently pray while we are riding on a bus going to our office or school. We can think God's goodness when we feel the heat of the sun on our skin. We can say always say Thank you Lord whatever we do or we can silently request God to give us favor before men whenever we meet new people. We can do it if only we are determined to do it.

God wants us to continuously communicate with HIM.

Salute Our Pastors

For the culminating verse for our series, our last memory verse for the theme "Pastor" is in Hebrews 13:24. The Bible says, "Salute all them that have the rule over you, and all the saints. They of Italy salute you".

What comes to your mind when you hear the word salute? For me, I always associate salutation to military or police officer. Isn't before a military subordinate talks to his superior, he salutes first. Before he leave his officer, he will salute again. And I remember that COCCs salute CAT officers when they meet them in hallways or corridors.

But what does salutation implies? For me, this is a sign of high respect for a person. In this verse, we are instructed to salute those who have rule over us, which none other than our pastors. Meaning, we are instructed not only to OBEY them, REMEMBER them, but also RESPECT them .

1 Timothy 5:17

In continuation of our topic for this week, our memory verse for today is in 1 Timothy 5:17. The Bible says "Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine."

Although in this verse, it is not explicitly stated that the double honor only pertains to pastors, but in the phrase "they who labour in the word and doctrine," we can surely say that the one who is counted worthy for double honour is our pastors. Because they are the one who really labour in the word and doctrine. They diligently study the Word of God to make sure that they do not distort the Message of God and feed us with substantial food for our spirit.

I personally believe that we should give due respect to our pastor for they watch for our soul. They are our spiritual father here on earth. They care for us even though they are not related to them. They pray for us and they definitely love us as brethren in Christ. Is this not enough reason to give them the double honor?

May God give us the grace to continue to love our pastors and honor them as the Word of God instructed us to do.

Hebrews 13:7

Today's memory verse is still related to pastors. Our text is in Hebrews 13:7. The bible says "Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation."

Yesteday, the Word of God instruct us to OBEY those who have rule over us. Now, we are instructed to REMEMBER them. Remember them when? Remember them in our prayers. As I mentioned in my previous post, pastors and minister are also human beings. They are not supernatural being who have supernatural power who cannot commit sin. Just like us, they are also tempted and there are times that they also fall into sin. Satan's eye is always on them because they have bigger responsibility to God and bigger influence as well with the people of God. If he fails or fall into sin, not only Him will be affected but if not all most of the members of the church or even the outsiders. The work of the Lord will be criticized by none believers and if the church does not have a solid foundation on the Word of the Lord, it may collapse.

So as members of the church who benefit on the Word of God spoken by our pastors, we ought to pray for them always. We should always remember them in our personal devotions. We should also remember their needs in our prayer and if we are able, we should also be generously sharing them our material blessings because our pastors are feeding us with spiritual food.

Hebrews 13:15

Today's memory verse is in Hebrews 13:15. This is related to our yesterday's memory verse. For those who came in late, we will be sharing verses about pastors to give us the correct standard in treating them.

Hebrews 13:15 says "Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you."

In this verse, we are instructed to obey those that have rule over us, and that includes our pastors. Do we obey our pastor? Do we follow his instructions? The Word of God also tell us the reason. Three reasons are given in this verse: they watch for our souls, they are accountable to God for our souls." It is their accountability if they were not able to teach the whole counsel of God. If they keep teachings profitable for themselves or if they did not teach doctrines that they supposed to teach. If we are accountable for ourselves in the sight of God, our pastor has double accountability. They are accountable for themselves and for us. So we have to obey them because it would be for our benefit.

Jeremiah 3:15

Hey, welcome back! How was your weekend? How did God spake to you through the preaching of the Word? Were you blessed, encouraged, challenged or reproved by the Word of God? Were you able to remember to thank God for your pastor for being God's mouthpiece in sending you His Message?

Most of the time, we members of the church neglect our pastors. We often give them the least importance but most responsibilities. Sometimes, they even become the center of our criticisms and the recipients of our never ending complaints. Sad, but there are even churches who condemn their pastors for their mistakes forgetting that pastors are also human beings who are also susceptible to sins and temptations. They kick their pastors out from their church as if they are the ones who chose their pastors.

I was too blessed by God's message last night on our Sunday Evening Service delivered by one of the preachers in our church that I desire to encourage you to memorize verses that pertain to pastors. This is to encourage you to love your pastors and give double honor. I encourage you to join me as I memorize these verses and glorify God as we continue to study the Scripture.

For the initial verse, I want to share with you the text of last night's message. The reference text is in Jeremiah 3:15. The Word of God in Jeremiah 3:15 says "And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding."

In this verse, it is clearly stated that pastor our from God's own heart. They were given to us, to teach us the Word of God, to help us understand it, to nourish our spiritual bodies through the preaching of the Word of God. We are not the one who choose them, but God. If it is God who chose them and put them in their position, only God can also take away that position from him. We as members of the church have no right to replace him anytime we want and choose someone who will fit to our own set of qualifications. Only God can fill-in the Pastoral's Office. If Satan is in process of deceiving us to afflict our pastor, let us be reminded that our pastor is given to us by God according to His own heart .

Let us continue to pray for our pastors that God may continue to use him for our spiritual growth.

Reminder

Hi pal,

I am sorry, I was not able to post verses to memorize for the last two days. Can you forgive me?
I won't be able to post this weekend as well. So just come back on Monday :) I will prepare memory verses for the whole week :)

Thanks and have a wonderful weekend.

God Bless Us All

I Corinthian 10:13

Just like any other human being, a child of God is not exempted from sufferings... from temptations... from pains... from heartache... from things which can cause terrible hurts. Each one of us has our own cross to carry, the weight of the cross may vary depending on our strength, our faith, our abilities to carry them. The way we carry it will also depend on us. Are we going to allow these burdens kill us? Will we allow our sufferings snatch our joys and peace of mind?

Let us not forget that our God is an all-knowing God and He knows that we will experience these troubles in life so He gave us a promise to comfort us and remind us that He will not allow us to suffer beyond our capacity to bear it.

I want to share the verse I usually claim when I am in the midst of trouble. The verse is in

I Corinthian 10:13. The Bible says "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."

I am sharing this verse today because I myself is claiming this verse right now. I am emotionally down these last few days and I have no where to go except to my ever loyal friend, Jesus. I am hurting and I almost want to give up, but God has a promise that every problem has a solution. But what if the solution is not in my hand and beyond my control? Should I give up? Nah! I can still kneel down and pray. God is not only an all-knowing God but an all-powerful God as well. Nothing is impossible with Him. He can make use of the most impossible means to make a way for me. He can squeeze the hardest heart to make it soft and sensitive for me. All I need to do is Be Still, and wait for the salvation of the Lord. I will definitely overcome all the pains, either He will stop the person who is hurting me or He will make me insensitive of the pains. Either way, I must come out of this triumphantly. May God be with me.

Ecclesiates 9:10

Our memory verse for today is in Ecclesiastes 9:10. The Word of God says, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with they might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest."

In this verse, the Lord is encouraging us to give our best in everything we do. Whether we work or play or eat, if this is something that we need to do, we have to do it the best we can. Because when we die, we no longer need to work. As the verse stated, there is no work, nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave. So while we are still alive, we still have the strength, we can still think soundly, let us obey God's instruction. Let us do the work that He gave us with all our might and bring back all the glory to God.

P.S. Please come back tomorrow, for another memory verse. And it would really encourage me if you can live me a word or two :)

May the Lord bless your life.

Amos 4:12

Our memory verse for today is found in Amos 4:12. Amos 4:12 says "Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel."

On this verse I want to give emphasis on the praise "prepare to meet thy God, O Israel". I would to request you to replace Israel with your name. So it would go like this: "prepare to meet thy God O <your name>" Are you preparing for your grand meeting with the Lord? What are the things you do in preparation with your meeting with the Holy One?

If you would read the entire chapter 4 of Amos, God enumerated the things that He would do to Israel for turning away from Him. Same thing with us, if we don't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ yet, eternal condemnation in Hell is waiting for us. If we profess that we belong to the family of God but we don't do His will, what do we expect to get from Him? Would he be telling us someday "Welcome thy good and faithful servant!" Will we get a crown which we will offer to Him in heaven? Life is so short and time passes by without us noticing it. The only question is Are we prepared to meet our God?

[Review] 03/02/2009 ~ 03/06/2009

Greetings my beloved brethren! It's Monday again! Beginning of the busy week. But before we continue with our daily memory verse let us review the memory verses we had last week. I shared five verses to memorize. I hope you were blessed by these verses.

These are the list of verses for last week incase you came in late.

March 02 (Monday)
Isaiah 64:8
"But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, thou our potter; and we all are the works of thyhand. "

March 03 (Tuesday)
Isaiah 42:8
"I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to any graven images."

March 04 (Wednesday)
Isaiah 40:31
"But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

March 05(Thursday)
Isaiah 9:6
"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

March 06(Friday)
Proverbs 27:1
"Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth."

So how many among them were you able to memorize :) If you were able to memorize at least 1, it is a good start. This week you may try to add 2 more.

May we have an enjoyable memorization week ahead of us :)

Proverbs 27:1

Have you ever experienced telling someone of what achievement you may have in the future? I will be the next president of the student council or I will have my own car in 2 months or that guy will love me in no time at all.

Today's memory verse is in Proverbs 27:1. The Word of God says "Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth."

Sometimes we think that we can control what will happen on the next few weeeks or months. But in truth, that can never happen. We don't even know what will happen in our life for the next minutes. We don't know the time when we will finally leave this world. Even those who are terminally ill, their doctors cannot tell the exact date of their death. Can they?

Indeed, we cannot boast of anything. Our life? our wealth? Our family? Our work? Nothing! All of them can be taken away from us at the blink of an eye if God permits.

Isaiah 9:6

Today's memory verse is one of the first verses I learned in Sunday School. I learned it when I was still a kid. But sometimes my memory fails to re-compose it correctly in my mind so I go back on this verse and refresh my memory of the right wordings.

This verse is a prophecy of the birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ. God's promise that a Saviour will be born was first stated in Genesis (the seed). But it seems that his chosen nation keep on forgetting his promise. HE constantly remind them of this precious promise.

This is verse is one of the many verses in the Bible that declares that Jesus Christ (For unto us a child is born) is God. He is a mighty God. His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father and the Prince of peace.

This prophecy was fulfilled. Jesus Christ was born through a virgin. He suffered the worst death that a person can ever have to save a sinful man like me.

The entire verse says "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

This is a promise that a deliverer will be born to bring salvation unto mankind. This promise was directly given to the Israelites. But when they rejected Him (and the salvation), the salvation was also offered to the Gentiles.

I am blessed and thankful indeed that God opened my eyes to understand the way of Salvation. He opened my eyes to accept and appreciate the best gift I can ever have, the everlasting life (John 3:16).

How about you? Do you have the peace of mind that when you leave this world, you will be with our Maker eternally?

Isaiah 40:31

Today's memory verse is in ISAIAH 40:31. The bible says "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

What a wonderful promise isn't? As a working mom, I know the feeling of weariness. There are a lot of things to do and I have only two hands to do all of them. Sometimes it is really frustrating. But here, God is promising a strength that will not worn out. A strength that is similar to the eagle's wing that would allow us to do everything through God who gives us the strength. God knows that Christians are also human and is not exempted from all the feelings that any human being can feel. That is why He provided us with so much promises like this to renew not only our physical strength but more importantly our faith towards HIM.

Are tired? Are you weary? Why not claim this promise? God is waiting for us to just give HIM all our burdens and weariness. HIS two arms are waiting for us to give us comfort through HIS loving embrace.

Isaiah 42:8

Good day everyone!

How is your daily memory verse going? Were you able to memorize yesterday's verse?

At the end of this week I will summarize all the verses I shared with you for the whole week. We will check together which among the verses were we able to memorize. You can share you insights too if the verse I shared reminds you something or special to you.

Today's memory verse is still in the book of ISAIAH. In this verse, God declares that He will not give His glory to anyone, much more to the graven images. Can you guess our memory verse for today?

If your guess is ISAIAH 42:8, you are right! Probably you also love memorizing verses :)

For those who is new to the verse, here is the quoted verse in KJV "I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images."

Well the verse simply tells us that God does not want us to praise or worship graven images nor give the glory due to Him to any other except to HIM alone. But as Christians, we sometimes forget this commandment. Sometimes we are simply not careful and we do not realize that we are alady giving the glory and praise to the instrument used by God rather than to HIM. Good common example is during worship services. When we are blessed or encouraged by the Word of God through the preaching of our Pastor, we can usually hear some members statement like this "He is a really good preacher." or "He is eloquent." We tend to give the recognition to the preacher rather than to the power of the Holy Spirit to speak to us. Even little praise we give to anyone before God is a sin. We have the tendency to worship the creation rather than the creator. And the worst part sometimes, we rob God the glory due to HIM. What is our usual response when someone recognize our talents? Our achievements? Our looks? Were we able to give back the glory to our one true God?

Let us pause for a while, let's try to remember instances that we forgot to give ALL the glory to our Lord and and let us pray for God's forgiveness. Let us request God to help us not to give to anyone the glory due to HIM or worst get the glory for HIM.

God Bless and see tomorrow!

Isaiah 64:8

I want to share the verse that was mentioned last night during our Sunday Evening Service.

The reference used by the preacher was Jeremiah 18:1-6 but I will be sharing with you as today's memory verse is Isaiah 64:8. The Word of God says;

"But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and
we all are the work of thy hand."

This reminds me that I am not on my own. I have a supreme Maker who has a control over my life. Just like a clay, I have no value but my potter molds me the way He wants me to be to make me useful and valuable.

But sometimes, I tend to become too hard or too loose which gives a really hard time on potter's part to mold me. I tried to divert from my Potter's original design for me. And because of that, I become a pot which is not according to my Potter's plan and purpose. So He need to unmade me and mold me again. The result is just prolonging the entire process and putting additional effort to made me until I become a vessel that pleases Him. On my side, the process of unmading me causes some pains which is not part of the God's original design but simply a result of my stubborness.

The question is, after we were mold by God's own hand, do we give glory and pleasure to Him? Will God be proud that He is your Maker?