Footsteps to Zion

Did you know that our God loves gardens?  In fact, the Bible says that He planted the Garden of Eden Himself (Gen. 2:8-9). He didn’t just create them in an instant as a fully-grown garden. Instead, He planted the trees there and made them grow out of the ground. But more importantly, do you know what is the most precious garden to the Lord out of all the gardens in the world? It is not a physical garden but a spiritual one – it is the garden in our hearts. In a sense, when we become Christians, God plants a garden in our own hearts. It is this garden in our hearts that He carefully tends, protects, and inspects. And as any good gardener, God looks at the garden of our hearts looking for certain characteristics that are well-pleasing in His sight. What then are these characteristics that we should cultivate in the garden of our hearts? 1. It should be enclosed. Song of Songs 4:12 A garden enclosed Is my sister, my spouse, A spring shut up, A fountain sealed. Satan ...

Imagine your life was like a car. Throughout one’s life, one embarks on small journeys that are supposed to lead him to his ultimate destination. But whether or not you get to your eternal destination is determined by one thing - where God is in your "car." Is He outside? Is God watching us drive our lives from the outside like a spectator in a car race? He can only watch but He has no access to what is going on inside of us. We don't hear His voice. We go on in our lives without God in the picture. And the only thing He is expected to do is to cheer us on. Those who are in this situation are like cars going around in circles, lacking a clear direction and purpose. Consuming gas but not getting where they were meant to go. Travelling but not getting there. This happened for the Israelites in a time when they had no king so everyone just did what was right in their own eyes (Judges 21:25). The same can happen with us today. If God is outside of our car, we wil...

Have you ever heard someone saying that he or she has heard the voice of God? This may be hard to believe at first but it is certainly true that God can speak to each one of us. Yes, it may be easier to believe that God can speak to “spiritual giants” like Abraham, Moses, and Elijah but to believe that God can speak to normal Christians like you and me may seem close to impossible. However, if we read the Bible more closely, we will find that God didn’t just speak to mighty, anointed leaders of His people. When God chose to reveal the birth of His Son Jesus Christ on earth, He didn’t just reveal it to the rich, wise men.  He also revealed it to poor, lowly, unknown shepherds. “Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold,...

The Bible says that man is created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). This means that we have certain features and attributes that resemble God’s. One particular commonality worth studying is our eyes and God’s eyes. Just as humans have eyes, God has eyes too. However, God’s eyes see and do so much more than what humans can see and do. THE EYES OF GOD SEE EACH AND EVERY ONE. Nothing escapes His eyes because He is actively watching. He does not miss out on any detail. You know how it is when you are seeing but not really paying attention? You see but you miss out on many details. However, with the Lord He is actively watching everything. He sees everything that is going on. He sees across the whole world. He sees every single one of the 7.6 billion people in the world. In Genesis 16, we learn of the story of Hagar, the maidservant of Sarah. She fled to the wilderness because Sarah dealt harshly with her. But even there, the Angel of the Lord found her and blessed her with a pro...

Based on the message of Pastor Albert Garcia Disappointments… life is full of them. We get disappointed with our poor living conditions, the slow progression of our careers, or the lack of fruit in our ministries. We also get disappointed with people like our co-workers, our bosses, our own families, ourselves, and even with God. But more than just an emotion of frustration, disappointment is a spiritual problem that we can only overcome with God. He doesn’t want us to live the rest of our lives under disappointment but under His sovereign power. HOW CAN WE OVERCOME DISAPPOINTMENTS? Indeed, we experience a lot of disappointments in life but God can turn them around. He can make beautiful things out of our ashes (Isaiah 61:3). He can turn our darkest moments into treasures in darkness (Isaiah 45:3). Truly, God can turn our disappointment into His divine appointments because He is sovereign. Divine sovereignty means that God is in control .  However, when we go...

All of us are waiting for something. It can be as simple as waiting for our turn in the grocery line or waiting for our train to arrive. But it can also be as significant as waiting for the results of a dream school application, waiting for a long overdue promotion, or waiting for a loved one’s physical healing. But as Christians, we wait for so much more .  We wait for God to deliver us from long-withstanding sins. We wait for God to redeem us from our troubles. We wait for God to fulfill His promises in our lives. And we even wait for the day that we will finally see Him face to face. If we pause and honestly ask ourselves, do we know what we are really waiting for in life? And second, how is our attitude in waiting? There was a man in the Bible called Simeon who was tested in this area of waiting. He was an old faithful man who waited for a very long time to see the Savior of Israel and of the whole world, our Lord Jesus Christ, on earth. Luke 2:25-32 And behold...

In the Bible, there is a beautiful passage sung by Mary, the mother of Jesus, which we now call as the “ Magnificat .” The word Magnificat literally means “an utterance of praise” (Merriam-Webster). Mary sang this after the Angel Gabriel revealed to her that she will conceive and give birth to the Christ Jesus. As we read the Magnificat in Luke 1:46-55 , we can easily sense Mary’s joyful spirit as she sang this. However, what we often fail to realize is the challenging situation in which she was praising God. At that time, she was just a humble teenager engaged to marry but also about to bear a child. People could have easily thought of her child as one born out of wedlock. That could have even been considered adultery which was punishable by stoning in Jewish law. Mary could have feared for her own honour and dear life. Yet in spite of all these, she chose to magnify the Lord. And Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord, a nd my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour."...

Image source: www.LumoProject.com An “opportunity” is defined as a “time or set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something” (Oxford). The thing with opportunities is that they have a time limit to it. They won’t always be there forever. That’s why, when the right opportunities come, we want to get hold of them and never let go. Opportunities exist in many forms. For a lot of companies, they are looking for new business opportunities. For the working class, many are looking for better career opportunities. But for the true believer in Christ, he or she is looking for an opportunity to have an encounter with God. One such believer was blind Bartimeaus. He was looking for an opportunity to meet Jesus and get healed of his blindness. Such opportunity came on Jesus’ very last visit to Jericho (where Bartimeaus was) before He went to die on the cross and ascend to Heaven. OUR NEED FOR AN OPPORTUNITY TO BE HEALED While we may not be physically blind like Bartimeaus...

Many of us, if not all, are familiar with the verse “what you sow, you shall reap.” For sure a farmer understands this very well. If he wants to harvest apples, he plants apple seeds and not mango seeds. If he sows wheat, he shall also reap wheat. Simple as that. But what does this verse from Galatians 6:7 actually mean to us? As we take a closer look at the principles of sowing and reaping, we will understand what it means and how we can apply it in our everyday lives. I. What you sow you will reap. As this verse is true in agriculture, so it is in the life choices we make. Every kind of seed will produce fruit like itself. And so it is with regard to our works. If we sow love and kindness towards other people, we will also be treated the same. If we sow hatred and bitterness, the same treatment will also be shown to us. Luke 6:45 tells us that a good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings f...

One of the strongest men who ever lived was Samson. He was so strong that he was known to have killed a lion with his bare hands, caught three hundred foxes, and killed a thousand men with a jawbone of a donkey. However, while he was physically strong, sadly, he was morally weak because he was ruled by lust. Samson’s strength, therefore, was not true strength for true strength is not merely outward, but inward. True strength is the kind of inner strength that enables us to control our own emotions and appetites. Does your strength today come from your inner man or outer man ? The inner man is the person’s mind, conscience, and will. The outer man involves our physical bodies. The Bible mentions this in 2 Corinthians 4:16 which says: “ Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day… ” As Christians, there is a great need for us to be strengthened in the inner man. Otherwise, Paul would not have pray...

No one ever wants to be in a storm. People generally believe that nothing good could ever come out of storms. This goes for physical storms and even more so for the unseen storms in our lives. But is this belief really true? The answer to this question lies in an account in the Bible of the time when the disciples of Jesus went through a very dark storm themselves (Matthew 14:22-33). From this story, we will seek to understand why God allows storms in our lives and how we can have the victory that God meant for us over our storms. STORMS IN OUR LIVES The story begins with the disciples getting into a boat at night, as Jesus commanded them to. Unbeknownst to them, they were about to get caught in the middle of a mighty storm. But more than just stormy weather, their situation speaks of the kind of storms we can go through in life. Storms are when we feel away from God. “And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when eveni...

Image credit to: LUMO Project Many accounts have been written on the miracles of Jesus – on how He healed the sick, made the lame walk, gave sight to the blind, and many more. But an even greater miracle is how God shows His immense mercy to forgive us of all our sins, no matter how many and how grave those sins are. Such a miracle happened in the life of a woman whose story is written in John 8:1-11. Throughout her story, from the beginning to the end, we witness God’s mercy as she was forgiven of a very immoral sin. GOD SHOWS MERCY TO REVEAL OUR SECRET SINS Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to Him, “ Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. ” (John 8:3-4) The story takes place in the temple where Jesus came to teach. While He was there, some of the scribes and Pharisees who sought to test Him brought to Him a woman who was caught in the act of adultery. In Jew...