Tag Archives: life

Pride- Quick Quip- 3/26/24

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Photo by Matthias Zomer on Pexels.com

Hello. I actually was hospitalized recently. Had not had that happen again in a long while!

Pride I feel is the deadliest of all sins. Might even be more than the fellow ones with this considered those deeply evil sins. It affects politics, public events, movies, television, newspapers, daily life especially ones who feel that they “know it all.”

It affects people who say they are atheist. Ask a non-believer “When did you stop believing in God?” and there is a chance they might tell you. And a lot of times that thought is “If God is so loving He wouldn’t–” fill in the blank. They still believe but they want to turn from Him.

An atheist a lot of times is like a father and child. The child being the subject here.

As this person they might be mad at something they know is wrong and told so and turn away from their dad. They might even be upset that what they need to do is different from what they want to do! And in all of this, they could become prideful and want to hurt the father who has nothing but love for them and say, “I have no father.”

Pride does more than just make a person think they have no father. It forsakes the heart, makes self-intelligence more important than truth from the word the Bible. It makes people believers who should iron and iron each other shaping each other for the truth and the one person in the supposed discussion says “Well this is true to me. That’s all I have to say.” Then the talking is over. The End.

I believe it can make a person go to a church, think they are a real believer, then be so sure that they would die for the truth. Then they pass away and they end up in the trial of the White Throne judgment.

Because “all they did” was claim that their truth that they were demanding was the real truth!

Sad quip but true.

Freedom

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Since 1941, we have celebrated at day annually here in the United States of America. But do we really know what true freedom is?

I hope we really will cherish our freedoms. We one day will look back and at least pray we will be as free as we were many moons ago.

Sadly there have been a lot of changes to be honest, but here I will talk about something and not go on a tangent.

July 2nd 1776, the Continental Congress voted in favor of independence. Two days later delegates from the 13 colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence, on July 4th.

This was in the United States of America’s history, a historic moment for the American Revolution.

The Declaration document was drafted by Thomas Jefferson and was a huge win for America.

We are free to live here and stay independent from the tyranny and controlling government from England, our former home. Now to have our own land from there on the ones who helped found the land’s laws and rules to live freely but be limited as far as legalities go (that’s another story. It’s crazy how rampant substance abuse and people “celebrating” were doing freely in the streets then!).

We were free and hopefully we will be as free as we can be from today onward. Let’s celebrate our freedom today! God bless you and American freedom.

Devotion 2 Corinthians and Faith 7/1/21

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This site has now reached 50 followers (or “follows”) now. Thank you so much everyone!

What does it mean to have faith? Is it okay to have a faith in some higher power or is it okay to have faith in yourself? Can a person who is a Christian who hopes to only live alone be in great faith in the Lord?

Can God make a way where a believer is a completely different person from what they were before, through Christ?

Hmm, I think most of these are great questions. One reflects more of the world in wondering but if you yourself are a believer you may know that there is a difference (hopefully).

Here is the key verse for today:

For we walk by faith not by sight.

II Corinthians 5:7 NKJV

What does this mean?

Is there an “I” in faith? Yes literally, haha, but in a rather expressive sense, the only thing a believer should do is depend on the Lord and not in self.

It might be hard but even those who claim to be strong (or who say they might be stronger than others) will have this “I” attitude. Even saying that only caring about what God wants and not giving a crap about being with other believers is like having an “I” attitude.

I myself used to think that the church wasn’t important to me. There was a time I thought a church was just a “place” to go to not a body of believers. But it is a time to fellowship to lean on each other and help each other be lifted up emotionally, depending on each other through the love of Jesus.

It’s sad many Christians today now see themselves important over people they should share the gospel to, a strange newer attitude like an “I” one where own goals own drawing from the word is the only thing they think that they themselves should focus on in life.

Though we have the tendency to focus on ourselves, one should not come into a church and think that way. People who do that will probably come in, not talk to people and leave as soon as the “credits” roll, err I mean, when the service has ended.

Are we to act like we are in a movie theater or a body of ones who have learned to be love to one another?

We must have genuine love and also through a unified faith in Christ, we can help guide each other in God-honoring love that is deeper than the world would ever understand.

Also we must know that if we want to live in and for Christ, God can do amazing things in our lives!

I can only boast of the power of and transforming grace of Jesus because He has done things in my life that were not my effort, these in my old life would be impossible.

To keep faith in Jesus and be close to His Word as one walks day to day they will experience change.

And that is because of something that is what Paul mentions later in Second Corinthians about being “new” because of Christ’s blood and revealed love, to be changed by His grace.

In verse 17 of chapter 5, the writer describes being a new creation. It says that if one is in Christ they are a “new creation” and the “old things” have gone as behold by the power of God all things have become new!

When Christ died on the cross the sin of the world was being paid for as He was the lamb of God the sacrifice for all sin.

When Jesus shed His blood it was for the alcoholics, ones with the heart of Saul, people recklessly and hopelessly stuck in sin, people who don’t know any better than what their family taught them, the thieves, the liars, the ones who struggle every day yet feel their sin is not “savable” or can be loved by God, all of the world’s so-called “life,” torn apart by the awful stink of sin.

So if you have wondered what the faith is all about, I hope you one day will know and experience this life yourself.

One can only tell you what the life in Christ is because you would one day have to believe to really understand. It will not be an easy journey but it will be worth it. I sincerely hope you do have it happen in your life, today or maybe soon but all I know is God knows the way your heart really is, believe in something! Maybe you’ll learn to believe in God sooner or later, just don’t let it be too late!

Blog Entry- Dwelling 5/13/21

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I am still not a fan of this newer version of WordPress, haha. Maybe I have to adjust. But come on, why can’t some things be the same?

Heading out to work it seemed like time was still yet choatic. I was trying to focus on doing what was needed. Doing what the Lord knows honors Him, not because anything I do of my own effort was great but because God is great! I should take every moment of my life and devote it and set it aside for Him and His glory.

I then knew I had to get to my devotions. I was only focusing on a memory verse from Psalms but instead I because I wanted to do that book for morning devos (hehe) I thought “God lead me to a verse.” It seemed as life in Him sought fit I saw Psalm 91 to read.

It spoke again and again of the dwelling of the “secret place” of the Most High.

Here’s a part I just noticed looking over it now:

“He who dwells… Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” Part of 1st part then whole 2nd part of Psalms 91:1 NKJV

Is there a way here on earth we can see the Almighty as a place of refuge? A place to just rest and meditate on His promises…?

As I stepped outside I was waiting for the bus. It seemed like it wasn’t coming. Growing quickly impatient I started walking back and forth people honked at me like I was being a maniac I guess, haha!

After a while it seemed like the bus wasn’t ready to come yet. I thought I was in my sinful heart patient “enough.” So I prayed the bus would come soon. Then at the right “time.”

Oh man, did He answer that prayer. And in a way I could never expect!

The sky was peppered with clouds giving the sky a beautiful hue. Also the sun was not overbearing but beaming down its spring rays. If it kept up like this I was probably going to lightly burn if the sun kept doing its duty, haha….

I wasn’t used to the sun being this strong. Especially in the springtime because it was my favorite time of the year (fav season! Not too hot like the summer and not too cold like the winter).

But then I shifted my focus from myself to someone else. A person from my church with whom I know his struggles. The poor man seemed stuck in them; like if other people are growing he would ask them repeatedly for little “rays” of sunshine to help make his day! Didn’t he realize he had his own ray too…?

Just because he struggled in alcoholism doesn’t mean he was far way from the hopes and love of Jesus!

So I imagined singing him a song.

In His presence/ There is Comfort/ In His pre-sence/ There is peace/

I didn’t remember the rest of the song (haha!) but I at least hoped in prayer the Lord would touch His heart in the only way I knew how. By His Holy Spirit.

Then I realized that He does that with me too…

…and like a gentle shadow of a shelter dwelling there was a “shade” that covered the beaming sun…

then the bus came. Amen!

Father with a moved heart, I am amazed by Your love and mercy. I hope that so many will know that Your love to know through Christ doesn’t just “convert” people but it does amazing things that only people who have their eyes opened for God understand!

Oh Lord, Father in heaven, Your will be done to your people and also may they be impacted greatly by how amazing You are to the point that they will serve You out of gratitude and not out of grumbling, that they remember that God’s love is for everyone but can impact ones that they witness and minister to…. that God loves us so much that no one…. NO one… should perish.

By the loving blood of Christ who shed His blood for all sin, Amen.

Thank you for reading this. And I hope at the very least this moved you in a way only God can do…. 😀

Blog Entry-4/14/21

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A lot has happened recently. I will hint of some of this here. I want to recount something brief here. But there is a little message at the end.

I guess what I want to do is tell just how much I kinda lost it recently. It’s a sad small world that what I will tell you happened around the time somebody just died (related to another person who I happened to talk about in my debut blog entry!).

Sometime after this tragic thing happened I just didn’t know what to do. I had been working constantly (and had to work non-stop where the week prior I got my vaccine shot which was set up for me the day before I was going to be off for two days) and I wasn’t sleeping too well and hadn’t been properly exercising either. The only time I moved around was at work and also if I spent any time with my buddy Paul.

Well I think because of being so busy living like this, maybe my old nature which is constantly worried, almost always afraid of things caused me to do this.

This might not be an interesting story. I just want to tell it because it’s something I feel like has kind of been passed on maybe generations with my family (at least with my dad, haha!). But we are seemingly worry warts.

My buddy (who might not want me to talk about his condition) has some health problems. So one day I was just hanging at home not doing much interesting I realized I hadn’t heard from him in what I thought was eleven hours! I freaked out. I couldn’t help it.

So I went to the convenience store in hopes he was hanging there cuz it was a place he enjoys being at and asked the man at the cashier section if he had come in.

He said no. Usually if I don’t hear from him he’s just there. A lot of people see him so much there as he is a very talkative guy and likes to chat with everyone. So now no one I knew saw him. I hoped he was at home. Then I had a comforting realization that I did remember hearing from him (in a way).

I saw that when I was about to text him last he must have just gone to bed. It said as I was messaging him (he never saw it) that he was last on it about 15 minutes ago.

Whew, what a relief!

Now a normal person would just go home and know logically things were okay and he would message me when he felt like it. Right?

Well not me at that moment! After I left I had a thought. I felt like I would be a jerk if I didn’t at least visit his house to see if he was alright. So after confusing myself walking one direction then the other I made it final. I would see him.

Then I walked the way there, walking around in public late at night towards his house. By the time I made it I hoped that there would be evidence he was alright. I got to the house, still a little upset that his lights were out. If his lights were on I’d find a reason to knock (I felt if they were off he’s probably trying to get sleep which he struggles with at that place because his neighbors are known to make a lot of noise. Not always but at the worst times!).

Then as if an air of comfort came to me again I remembered I saw that last time he was on. He must have been fine. I theorized he must have dozed off right around the time I thought of texting him and as I said before he has trouble sleeping.

So I left his place the door of his house without knocking and went straight home. I found out later he was completely fine.

So now… why did I say all that? I’ve got to tell ya that in the bible Philippians 4: 6-7 it tells us to “be anxious for nothing” to give our requests to God. It also tells us ways we can give our requests (prayers) and it seems to imply we must do so with dedication. Do so with a great purpose and be thankful for all He has done for us. To be anxious means one is not trusting what God already has had from the start… and that is complete control. Control of the world amidst the chaos. Control of you. Your life.

Why must we be so anxious? I don’t know. I’ve been struggling with that since the first time I was hospitalized. I was afraid of what I thought was real but even then I should have trusted Him. I hope that in this crazy road of life I can give up all my anxieties. And I think I can! Just as long as I’m not like Peter looking at the raging seas when Jesus told Him to keep His eyes on Him. Trust Him.

Goodnight.

Leave what’s not needed behind- Poem below 12/22/19

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I just made a personal, spiritual declaration today! What more good timing than to give this poem I was going to post when written but became afraid because I thought it was too personal.

And hopefully I will give a Christmas type of post here but just in case my own timing is bad, here is a verse I just heard in church: “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. ~Galatians 4:4-5″

Here’s the poem:

Title: Burning Bridges

Some paths one should not return
Some places could be dangerous
To go back over a place one thought they were to stay away
A treacherous test to play

I thought I had gotten past it
To burn that bridge was once enough
But to feel the pull to go over it, singed it now is
Still thought just one more go would be good

But I might not make it back this time
I must not take the risk
To plan to demolish, destroy, to build anew
I should say “Goodbye” like to a cruel comfortability

And I will. Time to go and do it
And finally be free from its easy straying walk…
to endless good possibilities

Written 11/23/19

11/17/19 Quick Quip- God speak.

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Was experiencing just this very thing where I was expecting God to talk to me but not reading His Word or making an effort to actually listen to Him. At church the message was about God seeming to be “unfair” and the so-called silence that people claimed God was being to them. Without grumbling I am just humbly saying I can be so blind to His will sometimes… 

We think sometimes God is not hearing us. Depending on the situation God might want us to learn something we don’t see in that moment, that time. We can use that so-called lack of voice to grow, to depend more on God. But I plead we must never think God’s “silence” means He has abandoned us.

~ C. J. Scurria

11/17/19

Quick Quip- A Pit 3/11/19

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A good chunk of this sprang from reading a book that my church has been getting into lately by a great writer. Maybe in a future post I will speak about this and the other book we covered that is about the Christian life but how we might get the wrong idea about how to live it.

Believe it or not but just moments ago I was feeling like I was in almost a pit of despair. For some time now, depression and complicated things in my life were feeling like they had power in tearing me down.

It wasn’t until I found a glimpse of a purpose; I saw someone I never thought of to pray for and feel like that began to open my eyes. I realized that the person had little to no self-worth and prayed they would find that in God. It didn’t strike me that something that was seeming self-seething banter was actually not that but a real reflection to how he saw himself.

It seemed that God has done this with me a few times maybe more. Where I had to feel lower than usual to realize that God wanted me to see HE was doing the work and not me! Too often I thought to live for God but telling others about Christ felt almost like a burden or something that would be too difficult. As my pastor has once said all as believers are called to tell and testify of Christ but there are some who think of this as a chore or with the wrong attitude.

For a while now I have also felt like I have a burden toward certain people and though I don’t exactly know the know-how to speak and reach these people in Jesus’ name effectively yet, I will still at least strive towards that as well as want to share the gospel with the people around me.

I hope that you reader will realize something greater than this life seems to offer. Sometimes life has to get us into a pit before we find out there is a way out and a path in life that is greater than we would ever expect. I hope in Jesus that He shows you the way as well.

Quick Quip-Restoration

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Sometimes God will do things beyond what we expect. I even think of my testimony where God had transformed a part of my life that I thought only I could do (or at least try to succeed at it- I failed) and He did the impossible because of the change I had through Jesus Christ.

But actually God can if you know Him do things you can’t expect. He can restore Your life if you live for Him! But not everything is instant in happening in your life though; in fact sometimes you have to wait on Him for certain things (while that happens, build up your character in Christ) but it will be worth it.

I have not reached certain parts of my life I hope to achieve yet. I thought I was going to be married to someone, have kids, etc. but a lot of things in life got in the way (mainly my fault). In church just this past week, all I could think of was that I probably had a few things to give up: things I needed to bring to God and lay the burden on Christ (mainly using bad language even when I’m alone. I don’t like to admit that). But up until then I was seeing God doing many things in my life leading me up to Sunday and felt the tugging in my life. That was when I poured my heart out to Him in tears praying I will live for Him with all my heart. I want to give my all to Him.

I wasn’t going to just only give up little things while other things I knew were not good would just be like a hobby. I wasn’t going to half-“donkey” it. (You know what word I mean by that….). No but instead I feel that I should give back to the Lord, everything as much as I realized the day I was completely transformed by Christ.

Even believers need to be refreshed in the spirit and be restored to what God wants them to be at that point in their life. This is not saying that in one day you will be pretty much 100% like Christ (that is where sanctification comes in. Also it’s a process only we will never be perfect, not until we are gone from this earth).

I was reading a devotion by Max Lucado recently and one thing caught my eye. The title for that day was “A Complete Restoration” (just to note I wasn’t going in order like one would normally with devotional stuff like this). It says that God “has” to change us. If we aren’t changed by Him what can He do in your life? He must take down walls of hatred and replace them and other things with His goodness. We need to be transformed and restored or else what can we be when it comes to showing the light of Christ so that others can seek Him?

Quick Quip- More than just a Fan

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Some churches have a strange agenda. They think it’s a good idea to take in people unchanged by the gospel and then have them a part of the ministry. This is only to increase numbers and to also tell people on the outside that “Hey, we are not like those judgemental church people. We’re the cool ones!” But what they don’t realize is how dangerous that is.

What is the point of the gospel? It is the good news!

It is where the holy spirit after initially saving someone eternally they will then try to learn grow in that life and be changed from the inside out. But some churches like I previously referred to act like they are more of a fan club. They only skim a person’s comfort zone like they are hoping the person will be okay and be on their side.

Doing that is not only halting Christ’s kingdom but is not lasting in the long run. There is a huge difference with having something like a fanclub which can easily end in a month but an eternity is forever no matter where a soul ends up going. Ultimately there are only two locations at the end of life: There is to be in Heaven or hell.

I choose to be more than just a fan. This is for me and the people around us not because I’m “judgemental” as people would accuse but because what God’s word says is in contrast to what we may expect; but it is also beneficial if we want to go to heaven and also on this earth guide people who will disciple others in leading them towards Jesus.