Why Do We Do What We Do: Marriage

We're going through a series where in we try to redeem the biblical implication of the stuff that we usually practice and see a bigger picture of what they are. One of the very things that we're going to look at right now is the very meaning of marriage. What is so important about it that we have to redeem the biblical meaning of it in hopes that we truly see the serious thing that marriage is, that it's even bigger than what we have thought it is.

This is one of the very things that I have always held up high and respected and waited for. I'm very blessed to have parents that are enjoying marriage and ever since I was a kid I've always wanted that kind of thing. Of course with the help of various media and just me being my plain ol' cheesy self, I've always held marriage in high esteem. The gift that it is to a couple of people who loves each other and the rewards that comes along with it. 

Has it been this way to many? This has also been one of the things that have constantly broken my heart. Being a witness of a marriage that wasn't even given a chance to materialize, hearing of people cheating with their husbands and wives left and right, marriage has consistently degraded from something held serious to a glorified "relationship".

I hold myself as someone who shouldn't even be talking about this since I am in no way near this season but I will speak to it in a stand point of someone looking at it, walking towards it with someone hand in hand and wanting to understand what it means more biblically and hopefully get to share that season with the one I am in love with.

Our goal for this session is to see what it is, and hopefully have a bigger picture on what it is biblically, and let our minds as people who are in a season of singleness looking for someone to share this with. I am not stopping you to chase relationships or going for this, I just want to mold your minds on what the texts that we're going to look at say about this and we could start from there.

End All, Be All (Psalms 51:12)

What has been the primary motivator or the hook that fished you out of the waters? Provision? Promise for a posh life? No worries? Peace of mind? Comfort? Assurance that everything will be ok? or something else?

Many, including me, has succumbed to these things that would draw me into loving Christ, or have thought of loving Christ. I have always been dreaming of a posh life somewhere on my high rise condo, with my shiny white car that would get me around the metro. That was what I've always been thinking of since I've been fed with things that would make me think of these, never have I considered myself as someone who was hooked because of salvation, until now.

One prayer, one cry of a king, one particular verse in Psalms 51 claims that very conviction that I have now. That particular verse in Psalms 51 has become my rock and brings me comfort that it is because of that, that I love Jesus above all.

Restore me to the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. (Psalms 51:12 ESV)

All Things: By Him, Through Him, For Him (Col 1:15-17)

Let’s start with questions before we dwell into the verse and how I got to understand this and also with regards to my life. So let’s go into the questions…

why do bad things happen to good people? why do bad things happen at all? if God exists then why does sin abound? why does things like murder and others happen? Where is God when family members pass away prematurely, jobs gets cut… 

These are the things that makes us raise questions about His reality to begin with. As to my life, why, in all my life being a Christian, succumb to depression to the point of complete darkness. 

more after the jump

Man, Choices, Freedom, Slaves

I have always found myself wondering what Paul meant in Romans 7:18 "... having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness". I kept on wondering about this paradox of being free from sin yet still slaves. I have always thought that freedom from sin would be freedom.

So bear with me as I try to dissect this particular verse and reach to a conclusion on what this could probably mean. I guess, by trying to look at this particular verse, we'd also get to understand if we really do have a choice in our lives and how these choices are operated. I'll probably go to another verse in Proverbs to see where plans and decisions lay.

Diary of a LifeGroup Leader: The Battle for Staying Right in a Left-Leaning World

Humility versus Standing Firm.

For centuries possibly something more epic than what it is. Christianity, in my own observation through history and different perspective of denominations, have struggled to present what is outright right and where they stand. It varies from different doctrines from the bible to what you should wear during Sundays. And I found myself caught in the middle.

In a world right now, where relativity is the norm, It's hard to present what I believe is outright right and present what is outright wrong. I can't seem to get past the complex explanation as how the scholars have done it through their books and messages to how simple it should just be. This is where I find myself in between two contradicting essentials that believers should stand on. It's Orthodoxy and Context Simplicity. The struggle of being true, pure, right and staying that way while connecting to someone who doesn't know a single thing or have known a different kind of thing. It's my personal wrestling on Theology itself.

The Battle for staying right in a left-leaning world.