Day 16 - It only takes Two

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

Matt 16:24 (NET)

Following Jesus cost a lot more things than we actually know. It is not easy of course, but Jesus give us just two steps before following Him. With a lot of other words inside the Bible, Jesus compresses it into two: deny yourself and; take up your own cross.

Denying yourself simply means refuse. And what are you refusing of? Pleasures, your comfort zone, your gadgets, your video games, your alcohol habit, your drugs, your cursing habit, etc. So much things you can refuse more than you could think of. Of course it is not that easy to break a habit, but the Lord wants us to deny ourselves for before we go to the last step.

Take up your cross means accepting or challenging social critics. It doesn't mean that you have to take a burden or hardship literally when following Jesus. When you deny yourself, you are starting to change your habits and for that, people around you begun to realize how much you are changing and will become critics about it. This will be you cross taking up, all those blames and comments because they don't know the real story.

When we're done with this two, we can now decide to follow Jesus. Remember that there are lot of notes in the Bible to help you out with His instruction. Just don't lose your faith, deny yourself and take up your cross.

Day 15 - Food take in, Word say out

17 Don't you understand that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach and then passes out into the sewer? 18 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these things defile a person.

Matt 15:17-18 (NET)

We people needs to eat and food is what we eat. Logically,  we ate the food, chew it down in our mouth, goes down to our stomach, starts to digest that food, stays awhile in the intestine for further digestion and then releases in our body goes down to the sewage. Basic science and all of us, including Jesus knows about it.

But Jesus describe 'things come out of the mouth' as words every mouth would say. Scientifically, every word we say is base in our knowledge to response during a conversation and our brain arrange those words so quickly as we say the each word output.

Jesus knows everything, thus he knew what every heart would say. We may say something that our mind created but what we say from our heart when we are pissed, when we are angry, when we are happy, when we are sad, every emotional response we may say coming from our heart is what our character is about. And the Lord knows what our heart is saying thus he knew what are our characters and attitudes. So we must always be careful to every words we say for the Lord will be delighted when we say good things.

Day 14 - Everything in Every Prayer

And after he sent the crowds away, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.

Matt 14:23 (NET)

Jesus has done miracles in this time healing the sick and casting out demons. But after he does all these miracles, after he send them away, he went up to the mountain where he pray privately. For hours he pray and pray and pray until evening. But what puzzles me is that, what Jesus prayed for?

For all those miracles Jesus has done, i am sure that he is praying to thank the Father. What Jesus did, pray until night came, is significantly shows how much we should thank the Lord in everything. In Jesus' experience, where many great things happen, he prayed to thank the Lord but also he shows how much weariness he felt and still called out to the Lord and thank Him for everything He has done.

Just like Jesus did, we should always learn to pray for everything. Whatever you do, wherever you are, set a side and pause a while and pray. It doesn't need to be that long like Jesus, but privately, pray that comes from the heart and the Lord will be delighted.

Day 13 - Great Treasure of Joy

The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure, hidden in a field, that a person found and hid. Then because of joy he went and sold all that he had and bought that field.

Matt 13:44 (NET)

The parables of the kingdom of heaven is a great story to know. Just like as this one were a person found a treasure. The treasure symbolizes the Kingdom of Heaven, were all great things, luxuries, beauty are there and no one could imagine how much value this treasure is. The person symbolizes the people who followed Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. The person sell all his belonging's to buy the land where he hid the treasure after he found it. This act means that whoever follows the Lord and experience happiness and contentment will forgot earthly things and acquire the treasure with greatest value. The joy that the person felt when he found the treasure is literal and hiding the treasure again means keeping the treasure to himself where he secure all the words of the Lord and obey it.

Humans are delightful to any treasure so he always find a way to get any treasure of great value. And the treasure as kingdom of heaven is not easy to find but when we follow the Lord, He will give us the map and instruction how we can get that treasure.

Day 12 - Be careful what you say for

36 I tell you that on the day of judgment, people will give an account for every worthless word they speak. 37 For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

Matt 12:36-37 (NET)

Words are very powerful weapon. That is why every word in the Bible is powerful because it came from the Lord who gave us this book of knowledge to perform good deeds and evade the bad ones.

Language is a form of communication and its a gift from God. Amazingly, you can communicate to the Lord using different languages as long as you are talking from you heart. The Lord always talk not by the words coming out from His mouth but what His heart is saying. And that should be the same for His children, were we are talking from our heart and not from our mind.

God judges what comes out from our mouth so we should watch what words should be spoken and words should not be spoken. We should also think every worthless thing in our mind before we say something. Remember that God is always watching us and when the day of judgment came, all words we said are to be judge, because what we say is what made of us.