Christ born of Mary

<sup>Luke2

1</sup> And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. ² This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. ³ So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city.
⁴ Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, ⁵ to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife,^[a] who was with child. ⁶ So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. ⁷ And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

⁸ Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ And behold,^[b] an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. ¹⁰ Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. ¹¹ For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹² And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”
¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:
       ¹⁴ “ Glory to God in the highest,
      And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”<sup>[c]

15</sup> So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” ¹⁶ And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. ¹⁷ Now when they had seen Him, they made widely^[d] known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. ¹⁸ And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds. ¹⁹ But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.

Give Thanks to the Lord

 

Philippians  4:6
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.


Revelations 7:12

saying: "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, Thanksgiving and honor and power and might, [Be] to our God forever and ever. Amen."

We need to give Thanks to God for everything, even for the air we breath and the water we drink.
But most of all Give Thanks for our Lord Jesus Christ. Thanks for dieing on the cross for our sins.

Thank you Jesus for choosing me as your daughter, for getting me out the darkness to the light and for loving me even though I was dead in  my sins.

Thank you Jesus for this country that I love and the refuge for the persecuted.
 

Friendship on God's Eyes

As Christians, we have to constantly face temptations and the attacks of the world around us. Everything we see, read, do, hear, put in our bodies, etc., affects us somehow. That's why, to maintain a close relationship with God, we have to put aside our old ways of doing things—the things we watch on TV, old bad habits (excessive drinking, smoking, etc.), the activities we participate in, and the people we spend our time with. People are divided into only two categories, those who belong to the world and its ruler, Satan, and those who belong to God (Acts 26:18). These two groups of people are described in terms of opposites all through the Bible; e.g., those in darkness/those in the light; those with eternal life/those with eternal death; those who have peace with God/those who are at war with Him; those who believe the truth/those who believe the lies; those on the narrow path to salvation/those on the broad road to destruction, and many more. Clearly, the message of Scripture is that believers are completely different from nonbelievers, and it is from this perspective that we must discern what kind of friendships we can really have with unbelievers.

The book of Proverbs has a few wise verses on believers befriending non-believers: "The righteous should choose his friends carefully, for the way of the wicked leads them astray" (12:26). We should stay away from foolish people (13:20, 14:7), from people who lose their temper easily (22:24), and from the rebellious (24:21). All these things represent those who have not been saved. "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?" (2 Corinthians 6:14). First Corinthians 15:33 tells us that bad company corrupts good character. Unbelievers are slaves to sin (John 8:34), and Christians are slaves to God (1 Corinthians 7:22). If we become deeply involved (either by friendship or a romantic relationship) with non-Christians, we are setting ourselves up for turmoil. It can (and does often) cause the Christian to stumble in his walk, fall back into a sinful life, and also turn others away from God (by misrepresenting God and Christianity). Another detrimental effect of closeness with unbelievers is our tendency to water down the truths of Scripture so as to not offend them. There are difficult truths in the Word of God, truths such as judgment and hell. When we minimize or ignore these doctrines or try to “soft pedal” them, in essence we are calling God a liar for the sake of those already in the grasp of Satan. This is not evangelism.

Although these close relationships are not recommended, it does not mean we turn our noses up and ignore unbelievers, either. Second Timothy 2:24-26 tells us that as servants of the Lord, we are to be kind to and not quarrel with anyone. We should gently teach those who oppose the truth, and be patient with difficult people. Matthew 5:16 tells us, “Let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly father.” We should serve unbelievers so that they may see God through us and turn to Him in praise. James 5:16 says that there is great power in the prayer of a righteous person, so bring your concerns for unbelievers before God, and He will listen.

Many people have been saved because of the prayers and service of Christians, so don't turn your back on unbelievers, but having any kind of intimate relationship with an unbeliever can quickly and easily turn into something that is a hindrance to your walk with Christ. We are called to evangelize the lost, not be intimate with them. There is nothing wrong with building quality friendships with unbelievers – but the primary focus of such a relationship should be to win them to Christ by sharing the Gospel with them and demonstrating God’s saving power in our own lives.
GotQuestions?org

When Jesus walk with us. Part 1 of my testimonies.

I had my annual retreat last weekend, our church finally had a retreat after a few years of not having any.
I was ask by Pastor's wife, to give my testimony, so I did.
I saw how some people were touch by my testimony. They came later to asked me for more details.
So...I got the idea of posting parts of my testimony for everybody to read it and see how God had worked in my life without me knowing it. And for some others to understand why I am the way I am.

Part 1
I grew up Catholic, I went to a Catholic school, I participated in every event my church had.
I was one of those people who made the sign of the Cross every time they passed by a Catholic church. I use to kissed the Saint's feet or touched them and then the sign of the cross again.
Now looking back to all those rituals I did...I ask my self...What was the meaning of all of that? and Why we were so focus on the Saints and Mary? instead of learning, Why Jesus die on the cross?

The only thing I can say it made sense was, that my church and my mom took the time to put the fear of God in me.  They always said to how God will punished me if I did something bad (in a way that was good) I always thought of that "punishment" before I was about to do something stupid, that thought of God punishing me was enough to stopped me for making irresponsible decisions and that is why I didn't get into much trouble trough out my life.

When I was a teen, my country got into a civil war that started in 1977 and has never end.
Those were very dark days, people were dieing here and there. Life didn't mean anything to a lot of people, those days "life" didn't have any value.
I just started my high school when these events were taking place.
As a teen I was trying to live a normal life, but it was hard to live a normal life when you wake up every morning wondering if that day will be your last day on this earth!!
Everybody had that fear those days, it was nothing you couldn't done. If you didn't have enough money, you couldn't leave the country.

In those days I just started high school, my school was 1.5 hours or so away from home...to get to school I needed to take 2 different buses...one from my house to downtown and a second one from downtown to my school.
It was kind of adventure to travel in that kind of conditions. But I needed to go to school.

I started school at 8 am, lunch at 12 and off at 7 pm. high school in a Catholic school was different than the rest of the schools in the country...High school in El Salvador is different than the high schools in the US. In El Salvador you get your Bachelor's at the same time as you take the regular classes for high school. The teachers for my vocational classes were business men, they were professional men that work all day and after 5pm they came to school to teach their classes.

We always said the Rosary before we were dismissed. I knew that some of the nuns were worry about us traveling at night.
This particular night I left the school, took the buss to downtown, got off and started walking 1/2 of a mile or so, to the next buss stop. I always walked in a hurry, because I was always afraid to walk on those ugly streets.
At one point I saw 2 boys seating on a step door, they were dirty and I could see the evilness in their faces, (some of these boys have to still and hurt people to survive). We looked at each other and I instantly knew that I was in trouble...They let me passed, stud up and they started to follow me, I saw the entrance to an ally, I started to pray to the virgin Mary (that's all I knew at that point) and at the same time I knew that if they push me into the ally, I'll be robe and rape or worse kill.
At the same time I was praying and having all those though running trough my mind...I felt this WARM embrace covering my whole body...I immediately had this warm feeling of peace (I didn't stop walking fast) ....something told me "everything will be OK".
The boys were still behind me, they were whispering to each other, but I couldn't make up what they were saying...Finally I saw the buss stop and many people waiting for the buss, I walked faster and went to the first girl I saw, and I told her that those two boys were following me, she told me to stay with her to keep each other company. The buss came and everybody gather around the buss door and all of a sudden this woman screamed saying "those two boys just yanked my watch" and of curse the boys ran and nobody would dare run after them...that could be somebody's death sentence, because these boys never work alone.

Now looking back to that particular night...I cry every time I think that my Lord Jesus Christ was the One  with me that night,  the one who protected me...His mercy is so immense that even duh I was praying to the virgin Mary, He took petty on me and saved me from those two boys.
Now that I have a relationship with the Lord, I can see how much He loves us, He knows that we are sinners full of pride, but if we ask Him to come into our lives, He won't think it twice! He will rejoice as we come to Him.
I give all the glory to the Lord Jesus Christ, because He didn't save me once, but many, many times...at that time I didn't even know that He was walking with me, waiting for me to start walking with Him. 

Because of the testimonies I have, nobody can take Jesus away from me, He was, He is and He will be with me for ever and ever...Amen

How strong is my walk...

I'd been thinking of how is it that some Christians loose faith in what they have once believe.
We are human beings, we are going to have battles in life, things won't always look pretty, bad times will come to us...but these things are facts of life.
For some people is very hard to have Faith in God when things start going down hill.
Many times we think that we are walking with the Lord, but all we are doing is going to church on Sunday, socialize with other Christians, and sometimes help pastor with the Homeless Ministry.
These are good things that we need to do as Christians...But what about your relationship with the Lord; what kind of relationship you and the Lord have?  How strong do think your relationship with the Lord is?

I love the Parable of the Sower, because it tells you where you stand with the Lord, if you are honest with yourself, you can see very clear if your relationship with the Lord is strong or weak.

Mark 4:3-20
3-"Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4-And it happened, as he sowed, [that] some [seed] fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air [fn] came and devoured it.5- Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. 6- But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away.7- And some [seed] fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. 8- But other [seed] fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirty fold, some sixty, and some a hundred." 9- And He said to them, [fn] "He who has ears to hear, let him hear!" 10- But when He was alone, those around Him with the twelve asked Him about the parable.11- And He said to them, "To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables, 12- so that 'Seeing they may see and not perceive, And hearing they may hear and not understand; Lest they should turn, And [their] sins be forgiven them.' [fn] " 13- And He said to them, "Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?14- The sower sows the word. 15- And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts. 16- These likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness;17- and they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word's sake, immediately they stumble. 18- Now these are the ones sow n among thorns; [they are] the ones who hear the word,19- and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. 20- But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept [it], and bear fruit: some thirty fold, some sixty, and some a hundred."

I pray that God will give us wisdom to understand, what this Parable is telling us, because we want to walk steady and not fall from the grace of God. Thanks you Jesus for loving us so much. AMEN

The Year 2012 (⊙.◎)

1 Corinthians 1:3
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I want to start today with the year 2012...so many people are disturbed with the "earth destruction" that is to come on December 12, 2012.
I believe only on what the Bible tells us about the last days. Noting else.


Satan is trying to take our focus off God, he twist God's word to manipulates and confuse people.
Now everybody is talking about the year "2012". The enemy knows that "man" in general is very weak when it comes to natural disasters. The first action is to sensationalize these acts through Hollywood, and after that panic takes over the world.


There is no doubt that these events will take place,  the Bible tell us very clear that these are God's plans... Jesus is coming for His people and at the same time He is coming to punish the sinners and because people have become corrupted and they have sin against God more than ever, God will destroyed the world.
In other words we the elects, the ones that walk with the Lord, will be taken before all these things take place.

Isaiah 13:9
Behold, the day of the LORD comes, Cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, To lay the land desolate; And He will destroy its sinners from it.


Isaiah 13:13
Therefore I will shake the heavens, And the earth will move out of her place, In the wrath of the LORD ofthe day of His fierce anger. 


I would like to ask you one thing...How is it that God tells us in the Bible that NOT even His Son knows the day or the hour of when all these things will take place.

Mark 13:32
"But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

If that's what the Bible tell us...how come people think that God had chosen the Mayas to disclosed that DAY (the Apocalypse) on their calendar????
I think that the Mayas ran out rock to keep curving their calendar!! That's all.
I'm a descended from the Maya race, I would like to think that God had chosen my ancestors to reveal the most important DAY (the Apocalypse). I don't think so!!!

The truth is, that that's not what the Bible (the word of God) tell us...

Matthew 25:13
"Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming. 

Be vigilant...yes we are living in the last days, so don't waist your life, don't be doing things that displease God, because we don't know the day or the hour, so be prepared...you don't want to be here in this world, to suffer the "Wrath of the Lord"  


1 Thessalonians 5:9
For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Thessalonians 4:16
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

Thessalonians 4:17
Then we who are alive [and] remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

CAN'T WAIT TO MEET THE LORD IN THE CLOUDS  (◕‿◕✿)

2nd Commandment

Matthew 12:31
And the second, like [it, is] this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." 

I had have people in my life that never liked me for one or another reason. I tried to stay away from those people, because they just brought pain and destruction into my life.
I'm not talking about my childhood or youth...I'm talking about right after I met my husband and after I became Christian.
You will think, that you are mature, married with children and most of all you are a new born Christian.
You have a new family, you are surrounded by grown up Christians...Life is good, right?....wrong!!!

Now that I'm a lot older and had gone through out many trials in my life, I realized that I'm not perfect...I will make mistakes or say the wrong thing to someone that I care about it. As a mature Christian, I know I have the love of God, and what ever I do wrong, I try to make it right, right away, before it gets too old.
What makes me different than some people I know is that, I learn from my mistakes.
God always gives me the vision of how my actions had displeased Him, and because I had chosen to walk with Him, I know right away what He is telling me. So I try to change what ever it is that I'm doing wrong.

God had always stop me on my track, it is up to me to obey Him or ignore Him...If I choose to ignore Him, I know on the back of my head (the spirit of wisdom) that my punishment is coming.
If you thought that God doesn't punish disobedient children...you're wrong!!!

For some reason some Christians don't think like that, they believe that after the had say the prayer of salvation they are save no matter what...they can go and still living the life they were living before they became Christians...it won't make a difference in their believes. They are wrong also!!!

I personally know these group of people that don't like me, but they put their smiling faces when we are together, but as soonest they can, they will try to make me look bad, stupid or ignorant in front of who ever is in the room (it seams that these actions are very important to them) they believe very deeply in their hearts that whatever gift God had giving them is because they deserve it. I'm not making this up, this has been going on in my life for many, many years already!!!

I'm still getting some of the sarcasms from some of them (Christians brothers and sisters) and the sad thing is that most of the time these bad judgments against  me, come from the males.
It is not because I'm a bad person but it is because I'm Hispanic and I speak with a heavy accent (this is good material for bad jokes and criticism) and some brothers/sisters can't tolerate  people like me, and for some of the brothers/sisters these are sings of "ignorance" so people like me don't deserve "respect" ether...
Who knows why some Christians choose to do things like this.?????

These problems haven't change my relationship with my Savior a bit...it has only make it stronger!!!

We Christians have the obligation of taking God's Commandments very seriously and apply them to our lives.
We don't want to take a chance of loosing Jesus in our lives, only because of our pride.!!

PLEASE,  LOVE ONE ANOTHER...

God the provider

Thanks God for all you blessings. Thanks for letting me know that "a job" is not everything in the life of a Christian.
You have showed me that You are the one in control. You will never forsake those who love You and trust You.
You are Who provides everything we need. I'm not in control of my life, You are!!
I pray that You will remind me of Your love, every time I feel down.
I pray that You will remind me of the purpose of my life in this world, every time I feel worthless.
Thanks You God for Mondays, thank You for these beautiful days in San Diego.

2 Samuel 22:3
The God of my rock; in him will I trust: [he is] my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence.