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God’s loving discipline….hebrews 12
“No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening- it is painful! But afterward there will be a quiet harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.” heb.12:11
in hebrews, it expounds on God’s love through discipline, or God’s discipline as an act of love. Love within discipline and discipline within love must always go hand in hand.
you can discipline without love but that is wrong.
you can discipline with love, and that is right.
you can love without discipline, but that is wrong
you can love with discipline, and that is right.
love and discipline go hand in hand while we’re here on earth. looking back on some of my adolescent years to my young adult years, i’ve been so hard headed, not just to my family, but to God most of all. I’ve seen Him see me go through years of living for me and going after things that i wanted instead of things He wanted for me, because i thought i knew better, i knew how to handle what i’ve gotten into. But once you’re a child of God, He doesn’t just let you continue with things that do not glorify Him, and things that are not best for you. When you’re on a questionable path, be it whatever aspect of your life, He is setting boundaries. He sets physical boundaries, and even people in your life that give you warning. even your ears are fed those boundaries, but we manage to step outside those limits, ignoring the yellow tape. we think we can handle what we get ourselves into, disregarding what God may think, if he’s disappointed, if we’ve hurt him, if in the long run it’s not glorifying him in that area of our life. we also don’t think of how it will affect the rest of who we are, of who we’ll become, and our relationship with God.
isn’t that why God disciplines us? not because most of our decisions will lead to our death, or a spiral downward pit of helplessness, but most often times because He know how that decision will affect the rest of who we are, of who we’ll become, and esp. our relationship with Him. God wants to be glorified in our lives. If the things that we decide to do or go into is not fully going to glorify Him, and if we know that it’s not really what is best for us, then waste time with dross in our lives? why waste emotion and energy to the things that will not let Him shine?
but God is God. eventually, if you are His child, your decisions won’t go ignored. He will make things right, whether we choose to comply the easy or the hard way. whether we bring ourselves to give those areas of ourselves, or whether He will discipline us to give it up. like the verse says, discipline is painful. giving up something isn’t easy. what ever is in life? i cannot write this without remembering what those are, and how seasons of my life were spent in discipline. but like the verse further promises, is that there “will be a quiet harvest of right living.” man, God never ceases to bring promises of a flourished life.
our problem’ with the promises is that we fail to look ahead. we cling to the now because we can’t bring ourselves to cling to tomorrow. it’s an issue of trust. but God’s discipline breaks us into our desperate need to trust Him. we can do it the easy way and give it to God, or wait for the hard way, when we’ll struggle with His discipline. but one thing i know for sure. God does not lose.
hebrews…
it’s so hard when we are being disciplined. we claw our way in defensive mode, instead of calming and quieting ourselves to have a teachable heart. we should be discerning of why we are being taught, what we are being taught, and who is teaching us. discipline leads to a “quiet harvest of right living.” it benefits us and glorifies Him when we are willing to listen and change.
a little nostalgic
i’m listening to zem’s disney lullabies, the ones that the capistranos burned for us. the solo piano keys make me feel like christmas. zem’s sitting on my lap and rubbing her eyes. she just ate the cheese sandwhich i made for her. i flattened it very thinly, and cut it into slices so she could easily eat it.
it feels like the beginning of fall outside and it makes me think of college days when i would be by myself. and it doesn’t make me sad, just a little nostalgic, a little younger, with memories…
i don’t think i miss those days too much, but i liked knowing i came to know myself. somehow, i think that’s important to me.
it’s the piano that makes me feel like christmas in august. i’m one year older next week. when did life come? will i get to where i want to be, what i want to do? and not just work, but to make a difference.
state park at netcong
after a little over a year, we finally went to see the state park that was near us. yesterday, we drove five minutes, not expecting to find a really clean, family friendly expansive park that included a beach area to the lake, picnic and bbq areas, fishing areas, playgrounds, etc. emma was sleeping when we got there, so when took her out of her car seat and walked around a bit, he woke up to the slight breeze on her badly cut hair. as perze carried her, she looked around and birthed a huge smile that took forever to fade. she really enjoyed being outside, seeing all the green instead of the cream sterile walls of our place. she also winessed live birds and ducks instead of having to settle for the one dimensional images in her baby books. we also let her feel the sand and let an adult wave pass around her baby feet. she really enjoyed it, and seeing you child with such wonder of something so simple makes you think about why as adults, we lose that wonder with something like nature. nevertheless, here are some stills of our small visit. the album is also included in my xanga photos, so just click around.
also, today, emma finally picked up on how to communicate her desire for a bottle of milk. for months now, i’vr been teaching her to motion her hand to tap her mouth 3-4 times to indicate her want for milk. 
today, as she made her little complaintive sounds, she gave the specific motion for milk. i gave her my hand so she could lead me just to make sure she meant milk. she led me to the kichen, pointed to the fridge and quickly aimed her eyes to the gallon of milk. recently, she’s quickly grown to understand the words we typically say. she understands and complies most often times to commands, and she’s learned how to effectively communicate with us through sounds or gestures. she even knows how to associate words that i say to pictures that she sees.
album: netcong. state park
Melchizedek and Jesus…Hebrews 6-10
i continued further in hebrews since 2 sundays ago, i taught on hebrews 5, spiritual maturity. i wanted to finish hebrews since i only know it for that topic as well as its chapter on faith (ch.11). those are the only two chapters i’m familiar with so i read ahead to chapters 6-10.
although the crux of the chapters led to Jesus being the ultimate High Priest and sacrifice, it alluded to a character in the old testament- Melchizedek, a king and priest of God who had blessed Abraham during his wars described in Genesis 14. This was still before the tribe of Levi was called by God as the ordinated priesthood to be set apart as the holy bearers of the Arc of the Covenant, and who performed strict sacrificial duties in the Tabernacle. Although i’ve heard of Melchizedek, this was the first time i researched who he was in the old testament and to what purpose he served as a mention and function to the New Testament. Who knew that a minor character of the old testament would resurface as a type for Jesus? i know there’s still debate going on as to whether he was a representation of Jesus or if he was the actual Jesus of the Old Testament since it was sited that he had no lineage or death, and he was named ‘king of peace’ as Jesus is the ‘prince of peace,’ but despite all the debates, his function was to show that the law made way and was therefore afterwards obsolete when Jesus came to earth.
Jesus was not from the Levitical priesthood, because he was a decendant of Judah, yet he was the final and ultimate High Priest who made the final and ultimate sacrifice. And since there is no remission of sins but through blood, Jesus made the old way of purification for all obsolete, and through his death, with his own blood became sacrifice. The reason they brought up Melchizedek was because he himself, still at the time of Abraham, the father of all nations, who had still to father Isaac- to Jacob- to the tribes of Israel- was not a part of the Aaronic priesthood, yet he was still a high priest who gave such blessing to Abraham that Abraham and his tribe gave tithes to him. Melchizedek was outside of the law, away from Judaic conventions, and therefore was a resounding figure of what was to come through Jesus, who himself was not from the line of Levite priests, yet He was the High Priest. Through Jesus, God made the Judaic law inoperative. what does this mean? why did he do it? it was to stress that salvation was through Jesus and not by the law. The law was fallable because its standards could not have been met by mere human deeds, and we continuously failed to measure up to the law. i’m not saying that God was fallable, but humanity could not gain eternity through mere sacrifices as they’ve done in the old testament.
Jesus paid that price and became the final sacrifice so that all could be forgiven and made holy. Only through the blood of the Lamb. Not by human priests, not by the law, but through Jesus. heb:10:10 "And what God wants is for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time."
this goes to show that it is not by good deeds, it is not by your merit or demerits, it’s not by regaining favor through regulatory offerings, and it is not even by the old law- salvation is through Jesus alone- the High Priest who is our advocate, who enters God’s Holy presence in behalf of us. the old law was only a copy of the greater things to come, a shadow of what was genuine salvation. the earthly tabernacle was only a likeness to the real presence of God, and when Jesus had finished God’s will for him on earth, the curtain to the Holy of Holies was torn, because all the old external regulations had no more function.
now i know the analagous relationship between old testament melchizedek to new testament jesus.
this is amazing: (hebrews 8:8-13, the remix of the prophetic paragraph taken from jeremaiah 31:31-34)
"The day will come, says the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel and Judah.
9
This covenant will not be like the one
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
and led them out of the land of Egypt.
They did not remain faithful to my covenant,
so I turned my back on them, says the Lord.
10
But this is the new covenant I will make
with the people of Israel on that day, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their minds
so they will understand them,
and I will write them on their hearts
so they will obey them.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
11
And they will not need to teach their neighbors,
nor will they need to teach their family,
saying, `You should know the Lord.’
For everyone, from the least to the greatest,
will already know me.
12
And I will forgive their wrongdoings,
and I will never again remember their sins."[b]
13When God speaks of a new covenant, it means he has made the first one obsolete. It is now out of date and ready to be put aside.
my space on myspace
when i joined myspace, it was because the youth were getting spaces, and were asking me to join, so i did. it was only this year that i dared to go further than the people i knew and search for people in my highschool, because out of 500 graduates, i wanted to know what my ex-classmates are doing with their lives. i found out that a lot of the people who i assumed were gay, actually came out of the closet during college. some people got married and already had two kids with a house, 2 cars, 1 dog, and a couple of gaming consoles like the xbox360.
i also wanted to know if out of 500 people in my class, who stood for Christ. there were a couple that i found to be encouragingly in that category. but as i was adding highschool friends, i wondered what they would say if they’d see my request to add them as a friend. i knew that they’d end up reading my page, and for some reason, i had an uncomfortable feeling that my old close friends would roll their eyes at me for my blogs, or some that may even call me a blind fanatic, or even the dreaded-oh-no-don’t-say-it-jesus-freak-wwjd-wearing-bracelet…person.
but after thinking about it, i figured that as much as they have the freedom and confidence to put up who they have become in life- a proud wife and mother, an angered raging buddhist (i don’t know how this works), a systems analyst for a small firm, a homosexual extrovert, a medical student, a film connoisseur, an aspiring fashion or music artist, etc…i too can be confident of who i have grown to be confident in.
i’m proud to say i’m a wwjd-bracelet-wearing 26-turning-27 woman…just as proud as i am to say i’m a wife to my genesis 2:22 husband, and a mother to my psalm 139 daughter. i am a 1 corinthians 4:10 woman.
after a few weeks of adding a number of my highschool friends, one of them actually messaged me this:
Marchesa,
I was just stopping by your page to say "hi" and ending up reading some of your blogs. I must tell you that your are absolutely beautiful….of course you are a doll on the outside, but I’m talking about your spirit. Its so encouraging to see the sincerity you have towards Chirst. His light truly shines through you. He actually used you and your words of wisdom to minister to me. It’s so wonderful to know that their our people our age who love the Lord so much.
Thanks and continue to let the love of Jesus shine through you.
-******
it was very encouraging because it was probably the last thing i thought someone would message me about my space in myspace. goes to show that people see all sorts of things in myspace, in bloggers, and even those are tools for encouragement and inspiration. i know not everyone reads my blogs, esp. the arduous reads, but somehow they’re out there for anyone…God uses them as He sees fit. God, you be praised…
numbers.
zem is 13 months. her cousin isabel is 2 weeks. her cousin samsam is 7 months.
it’s amazing how time goes by and numbers become sort of an assessment, as if your age is in direct proportion to what you should already have done in life, or what you’ve already acquired materially, personally…
soon, i’ll be turning 27, yet i have not yet started my career as most people. but somehow i can’t complain. i can’t because i’ve really really been blessed with things in life that you can’t acquire in 4 years or 6, or seven…or by applying and working hard. i’m also not saying that others who have not yet been blessed in personal matters should be less satisfied as well. what i am saying though is that numbers can be very deceiving.
numbers most often times requires you to have due dates, pressures that most often times make you fail at taking things slow…for example, some people buy material possessions that they’re not financially responsible for yet, or some people get married so they don’t reach their 30’s still with their single status.
for perze and i, we were a bit unconventional. i was the first in my group of friends, and even my family who got married, who had a baby, and had to build a home. i’m not saying i was readily up for all those heavy tasks, but somehow God really saw in me something that he wanted to accomplish at that point in my life, and that gives me comfort. my comfort lies in the knowledge and hope that God has my life in order if i continue to obey Him…in all things, in my relationships, my marriage…etc…when i live my life according to his timeline, i won’t need the things i don’t have- a career, or a house, or my masters…
perze and i need to continue to remember that we just need to be repsonsible in the things He’s given us, and not rush into things we want in the now, just because numbers and age says it’s culture’s norm. it’s difficult to discern when we manipulate life to appease our appetites, but i believe we should bear enough strength to stop and assess if it’s God calling us or life’s numbers.
“Unless you are faithful in small matters,
you won’t be faithful in large ones.”
Luke16:10
a baby and her cheetos
I was going over some of the pix that I took using my treo and found this one. Talk about someone being caught in the act. Emma grew her first set of teeth when she was 4 months old. Now that she is on her 13th month she has 10 total, and looks like there are two more on the way. Just like her dad, this girl is an eating machine. We’ve asked her doctor what are the stuff we could feed her and he said that we could try whatever we want but we have to check for allergies. So far she hasn’t really reacted to food in a violent manner … the only violence you’ll get is if you wont give it to her after showing that it can be eaten. Like this bucket of cheetos for example.
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