Comparing Yourself with Others

I'm wrote this blog entry just right after hearing a podcastfrom Steven Furtick, a pastor from Elevation Church, about competition and calling. And, I just want to share this to others.. That's why immediately wrote this (so pardon me if I have wrong grammar, little typographical errors or something.. anyway..)

“The death of contentment is comparison.”

Most probably, one of our struggles in life is when we compare ourselves with others. Or maybe many of us have even tried to outperform the person we’re comparing ourselves to. There’s a spirit of competition and this results to bitterness or even insecurity.

Well, here are the few things I’ve learned (and was reminded of) while listening to the podcast:

    1)      Everyone has a different calling.

-         God made each one of us differently and in a unique way. We don’t have to compare ourselves to others because we all have different callings (different future, different roles). If we do something else, it’ll make us more frustrated than ever.

- Calling: it's not about what He wants me to do, but about what He wants me to be.

2)      Freedom of Christ means that I don’t need to prove myself to others.

-         God is our only audience; we should stop trying to prove ourselves to others because it doesn’t matter anyway if people like us or not. In the end, what God thinks of us is all that matters. ^^

-         Plus, getting the approval of others won’t gain us anything in the end.

-         God does not judge our lives based on what we do, instead He calls us to be faithful with what we’ve been given.

“True freedom in Christ comes the moment that you realize that you have nothing to prove to anyone because in Christ, God fully approves of you.”

3)      I am LOVED and APPROVED by God!

“You’ll never fill your emptiness from a place of emptiness. And, you’ll never find what you’re looking for until He becomes the fullness that defines your calling.”

-         Be full in the presence of God. It is only God who can satisfy us and not other things or relationships.

-         Trying to get approval from other people or trying to reach their standard will only make us frustrated.

God’s love is the best love we can ever experience because we don’t need to earn it. That’s how amazing He is. ^^

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If you want to hear the whole podcast, you may download it from here.
The title of the podcast is: "The New Rules of Resolution: it's not a competition, but a calling."

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*Random*

Loving this song recently. HEHE.

Beauty is NEVER in the Eyes of the Beholder

I've been having fine arts class and I just love how my teacher explained about Plato's thoughts on the topic: Beauty. She told us that Plato, one of those guys from the Renaissance period (or the "classics" HEHE), questioned true beauty. Plato stated something like:

"True beauty is beyond human perception."

How is everything around us beautiful if it's subject to change?
How is it beautiful when it decays in the end?

My teacher went on, concluding that "True beauty is ETERNAL." What we have or invented here on earth is artificial beauty. Everything is just an imitation of real beauty which is perfection (something that we can't find here on earth).

So what then is true beauty?

Imagine a painter who just finished his artwork. I could picture the smile on his face as he is satisfied with his work and sees it as beautiful. Others wouldn't probably agree that they find it beautiful. They would just see it as plain normal artwork. They say "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder", but the truth is, it's not. That is what we call taste. On the other hand, creates something, it is undeniably beautiful.

Since God is eternal and created the things of this world, then we know that everything He created here is BEAUTIFUL. It's just man distorting the meaning or image of beauty.

Whenever we feel like we need to go with the flow or we feel insecure with our identity, we should always remember that God created us, therefore we are beautiful. Our worth is not based on what people say about us, but what God says about us. And He says we are, of course, fearfully and wonderfully made. God created each and every one of us as unique individuals.

Always remember:

JESUS THINKS THAT YOUR WORTH DYING FOR. ^^

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."  - Psalm 139:14 (NIV)

Craved for Cakes!

Last night was one of the happiest moments in my life because I got to experience the unlimited cakes and coffee promo! *Yey* While eating, we also celebrated the birthday of my friend who's turning 18 this Saturday~ So yeah.. There's no actually purpose for this blog entry.. I just want to share the yummy cakes we ate that I suddenly craved for again today. :))

The 5 of us ate in Shangri-La Mall, at Coffee Beanery. I think it's below the floor with the movie theaters and Happy Lemon. So yeah.. The unlimited cakes and coffee costs P200, but you have around only 5 cakes (i think?) to choose from and the unlimited coffee they serve is just latte. If you want to have more cake choices, you'll have to add P100 for an upgrade and you get to choose from around 5 more different cakes.

My favorite were the cheesecakes. It was soooo good. :"> So, if you're the type of person who looooves to eat, especially sweets, this is the place for you! ^^

Fearless

If there's one thing that could hinder us from doing greater things, it's FEAR. We all have fears and we can all feel fear. It may be small things like fear of spiders, fear of falling, fear of crowded places, etc. Or the more serious ones like fear of insignificance, fear of failure, fear of being an outcast, and the like.

Sometimes, there are even opportunities that we fail to grab because of fear. There are so many "What if.." or "This/that might happen.." statements in our mind that it causes us to be paralyzed.

Now, it's normal to feel fear, but it's what we do despite our feeling that counts. Recently, I've listened to a few podcasts by Elevation Church's Pastor Steve Furtick and the part which struck me the most was this verse:

"...Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. ¹² After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper." - 1 Kings 19:11-12 (NIV)

The Lord chose not to show His power in the form of a mighty wind, an earthquake, or in fire. He made His presence felt through a gentle whisper. He whispers, because He's CLOSE. He is with us all the time.

Why are we afraid when we have our most loving Father holding us and never letting go? Why are we running from certain situations that we need to face?

We may feel fear, but if we know that God is always with us, there's no need to be afraid.

UST Graduate Incident

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/300296/2-suspects-in-killing-of-ust-graduate-arrested

This is kind of a late blog entry about the news but anyway... HEHE. ^^;;

There was this news about a girl from UST who got raped and killed by a tricycle and another guy. I'm not so sure about how it all happened but yeah, you get the point (You can read the article above). Since I wasn't really watching television, I wasn't able to get the whole picture of the incident. All I heard was the cry of the mother on TV, telling the people that she would never forgive the men who killed her daughter. On the other hand, the two guys who killed the girl were crying endlessly and apologizing.

Upon hearing that, our househelper reacted by saying, "Dapat yung mga ganyan pinuputulan ng kamay para matuto." (English: "They should have cut the hands of those guys so that they'll learn.").

In my mind, I thought of the idea as "harsh".

But then, that comment made by our househelper kind of made me think more of God's grace. If cutting of people's sinful hands was already harsh for me, what more if it's God's wrath that'll be poured out on us because of what we did?

"..For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." - Romans 3:23-24 (NIV)

A lot of people just don't realize the consequences of their actions. NO ONE in this world is good. No one is right with God. We're all supposed to go to hell. That is the bad news a lot of people don't understand. They think that if they do good generally, they would go to heaven. And if they do really bad deeds (the major one's like stealing, killing, committing adultery, etc.), they'll go to hell.

That's not how things work. And again, quoting from the youth pastors in our church: "You will never appreciate the good news until you understand the bad news". Well, I already told you the bad news about hell, the good news is Jesus Christ!

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Romans 6:23 (NIV)

I'm thankful for God's mercy, grace and for Jesus Christ who died on the cross for us. I'm thankful that He adopted me as His lovely daughter to spend eternity with Him in Heaven. I'm thankful for His great and indescribable love for me! ^^

"Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." - Lamentations 3:22-23 (NIV)