Devotional for friends // Devocional para as amigas

  People lately love saying that they are moved by reason, that they are sensible. I think to myself, really? It doesn’t sound like it. I mean, you hear all the time people praising and motivating others to “follow your heart”, tell me how is that sensible?  In this context, “the heart” means emotions; and emotions mean unstable. What are emotions? According to a dictionary from Oxford languages,  emotion is a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others . Important words from this definition: instinctive, deriving, circumstances, mood.  None of these words reflect something reasonable. They all relate to something temporary. How can instinct be related to reason, if reason is something that separates us from the animal world? We are able to reason, the animals are not. We can build a train of thoughts, we keep a conversation. We argue. We defend our position. All these are based on reason. Therefore, “follow...

  Another day I was watching a priest talk about idols. It was very interesting. But the thing that really caught my eye was something he said: “God comes and accepts you the way you are, why aren’t you accepting the way He is?” Let me rephrase, I have talked about this once or twice. We try to get God to do what we want, the way we want, at the time we want.  So, why do we bother having a God? What we really want is a slave with superpowers that can give us whatever we want, whenever we think it is best.  People ignore His laws, but somehow, they still have the sense of Justice God has put in us. But it is only justice if we are the ones feeling unjustified. God sees it differently. James 1: 2-8 tells us a lot of things. You see, there is no passage in the Bible saying that the God to be God will do everything to keep you from problems, sadness, misfortunes, and tragedies. On the contrary, Jesus said, “in the world, you will have tribulation”. James teaches something mor...

I’ve been looking for a subject to talk about here for some weeks now. Finally, I got it. I am reading for the second time this book “This momentary marriage” by John Piper . I love this book because it teaches about marriage and its relation to the church. Because we’ve all heard that Christ is the groom, and the church is the bride. But… hardly someone takes the time to explain that.   Anyway, I am not going to talk about marriage here. If you want to know more.. check out his book. I recommend. What I want to talk about is what John Piper commented on what Paul wrote in Colossians 2:13 – 14. “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him [Christ], having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”   Now, I am going to quote John Piper here… because I thought he explains it beautifully.   “ Thos...