Max Lucado (Beliefs)

How are your beliefs changing? Growing or dissolving? Maturing or disintegrating? Hang on to the elements in your life that promote growth. Cut off activities and relationships that cause you to sin and replace them with ones that help you grow. ~Max Lucado

Discipleship Training

During my first assignment, I looked back and asked (I even want to ask those from the past...including those that ended painfully),

"How have they shown God to me?"

From my observations of people, there are two kinds of them.

One who would say "Just read the Bible and God will teach you." (People who said they didn't have mentors yet blessed for they have learned.)

Another who would say "Find a mentor. Find someone who can properly guide and understand you." (People who are blessed to have mentors and learned from them and their example.)

This is also in connection to my remembering which I shared to you:

"This is one of those times when I look back and remember what God has done in my life.... I thank God for a very lot. I cannot help but drop tears from my eyes right now for how much God is great."

I titled that "Transitions in Life.....Testimony".

In most of the transitions in my life, God sends people to help, love, nurture, and care. I am beginning to understand that in every new chapter of my life story, God sends people. When I was smaller, I knew there was something or someone watching over me. Though most times I would turn away from that something/someone, but I still return. Only lately (last year maybe), words that I hadn't described God before, "God preserved me." He has been preserving me. I don't know why. At times when I didn't want to exist, there is still that something that I need to yet stay on this earth.

Anyway.....also...I came across the verses 1 Peter 2:2-3, "2 As newborn babies want milk, you should want the pure and simple teaching. By it you can mature in your salvation, 3 because you have already examined and seen how good the Lord is. NCV"

I've met verse 2 all the time, but only now I see:

I've been a "Christian" for a long time but doubted my salvation. I would even be categorized as an old Christian, even told that I "don't need to be taught Bible stories anymore" because I'm "no longer a baby [Christian]" for I "have been in Sunday Schools and went to a Christian school unlike __(name)__." However, I still SO MUCH "want to be taught of the Bible" (those have always been my words). Yet, how painful it is to be denied to be taught of the Bible when it's a simple request "because I want to know God; I want God". Still, no "just read the Bible and God will teach you" or "you're old already" could stop me from wanting "to be taught of the Bible".

Though an old "Christian", only have I known God so much and His Word recently.

After that verse, I checked commentaries (biblegateway.com):

From Matthew Henry's Commentary --
"Strong desires and affections to the word of God are a sure evidence of a person’s being born again. If they be such desires as the babe has for the milk, they prove that the person is new-born. They are the lowest evidence, but yet they are certain."

As much as I want to acknowledge --- Soli Deo Gloria

If without God's givens, no matter how long it took me, would my cravings & yearnings "to be taught of the Bible" be met?

If without that one-on-one Bible Study, would I be able to read the Bible now as joyous and glad? Even the known hardest part of the Bible (Pentateuch), I am reading it with less difficulty and never finding boredom. People disliked Leviticus, but I could now read it without the thought of skipping it.

If without the reminder and made the words "God loves you" & "God chose you" real to me by letting me hear those words rather than by reading it from a book, would I have known God more personally? The first time I heard "God loves you" was 4yrs ago but no longer hearing those words a year later. When I heard those three words, I felt God touching my heart. And I longed for that. And when I heard "God chose you" for the first time, here's my thought "God, I await for your coming."

The more I am knowing God personally, the more I want to share Him to people, the more I want to learn to teach and lead others.

Though there are years wasted by wrong guidance (because I didn't know), God still has preserved me,  and it could be that the time has not yet come for me.

I thank God for the experiences...for now, I have known better.

I am still the same sinner...yet I thank God for His love and discipline molding me to become better each day. I still can make mistakes but I thank God for making me aware and I have to remember to "repent and not do it again". However, asking apologies from other people still cowers me.

"Today you have learned, Tomorrow you will be wiser." 

It may be a "turn off" from the first kind of people that I have mentors and I depend on them for my growth.......well, there are two of these kinds of people: one who are like them, one who are like me. And we're both blessed the same but in different ways.

Crave Pure Spiritual Milk

2 As newborn babies want milk, you should want the pure and simple teaching. By it you can mature in your salvation, 3 because you have already examined and seen how good the Lord is. (1 Pet 2:2-3)

It may have been that I am Christian for a very long time. I grew up in a "Christian" home. My father was the son of a reverend pastor. I had been told of the Bible stories, went to Sunday School, went to a Christian school, and went to church almost everyday during my late youth years.

I am now in my prime youth years. I have just entered the professional and adulthood chapter of my life.

I am a Christian for so long, but only this year have I been taught the Bible well and have known God more.

Has been for a very long time have I craved to learn the Bible, have I craved to know God and His Word.

From Matthew Henry's Commentary about the passage above:
"Strong desires and affections to the word of God are a sure evidence of a person’s being born again. If they be such desires as the babe has for the milk, they prove that the person is new-born. They are the lowest evidence, but yet they are certain."

I thank God for making himself known to me though the many years that I turn my back on Him and rebel....looking for Him in the wrong places and wrong people. However, though I do not know these places or people are the wrong ones, I still have learned though painful.

Transitions in Life...Testimony

This is one of those times when I look back and remember what God has done in my life.

God brought people to me, in every transition of my life, to help me grow, to nurture, and to teach me. However, when another transition in life comes, my relationship with these people would end unpleasantly. From giving up to misunderstanding to conflict.

1. The transition to enter teen years, it was 1 year, but I learned who Christ was.
2. The transition in college and graduating college, 3 years, I experienced the love and care of someone. Being nurtured. Allowed to be open. Guided to find my identity. Learned life skills. Experienced to have a surrogate mother and a church mother. However, she failed to teach me the Bible which was my ultimate request. Furthermore, I learned who God was and that God loves me.
3. The transition to unemployment and a neglect from my church mother, a very short 6 months, my first spiritual dad. I was all sorrowed from the pain, neglect, and denial from my church mother for it ended with a very wrong evaluation which resulted to sending me to a psychologist. This spiritual dad taught my Romans and introduced me the Heidelberg Catechism. He also helped me as I recovered from being a flood victim. I learned and have experienced more of God's love and grace. He mentored me. As my spirit grew, so was my emotional development also grew with my spiritual development. And I have known that my church mother was not theologically equipped and cannot really teach me the Bible.
4. The transition to finding a job and womanhood, ONGOING, my spiritual father left to be close to his family and ailing father, and I found my spiritual Mamu. She visited my church and city for internship from her seminary; that's when I met her. Though she is far away, I get to email and text her, and she would call me before sleeping when necessary. I am learning to read and study the Bible by myself, thankful for the one-on-one Bible Study I had when my spiritual father was here. I still update my spiritual dad from time to time because he is now busy as he is teaching in a school, and could no longer reply to my emails. So, at these times, I am learning to rely more on God, learning to look up to God as my Father. I have not even thought that my spiritual father was introducing me to the Reformed Theology. I only told him I wanted to learn Romans. I never thought I could learn this much from Romans, despite that my spiritual father and I have not finished studying Romans together. I am reading books more and finding the passion to read and learn more of the Bible as I read and discover.

The list doesn't stop there.

I would never know if my new spiritual mom would give up, leave, and break me until it comes but I pray it would not happen again. I would never know who God would send to teach me in another transition in life until I reach it.

I thank God for his wonder. Though there are times I wanted to give up, even when I still small, I wanted not to live. Yes, my parents may have not neglected my needs and shelter but they have failed to help me grow emotionally secure. I thank God that all my years, He preserved me. When I was lonely, God was there with me. I didn't know him much then, but now, I thank God for allowing him to know him more and more each day. I thank God for His love and the love my spiritual parents, the love of his family, the love of other people, the love of friends, the love of my parents though I fail to feel their love. I thank God for a very lot. I cannot help but drop tears from my eyes right now for how much God is so great. Though a sinner, I am still accountable of my actions, yet God still preserves me. Two words, "thank you", doesn't seem to be enough to praise God but still THANK YOU GOD.