Month: June 2026

“Then he said to all, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

Luke 9:23 (NAB)

We are all called to be disciples of Jesus, who told us to follow Him, but then He added that in order to follow Him, we must deny ourselves and carry our cross. If we are being honest, it doesn’t sound like a fun way to live life. I don’t think I’m the only one who’s felt some discomfort in reading those words telling us to “deny ourselves and carry our cross.” 

I used to interpret it to mean that some big sacrifice is about to be required of me, which is going to make my life uncomfortable. 

I realize now that there is a deeper way to understand Jesus’ words telling us to “deny ourselves,” since Jesus also said, in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” 

Denying ourselves simply means asking for God’s will to be done first, according to His plan, before asking for our own requests. After all, there is no better place to be, than in the center of God’s will, just as there is no worse place to be than in the center of our own will. 

We all know the Sinatra hit song, “I did it my way.” I heard of a priest whose parishioner requested that this Sinatra song be played at a loved one’s funeral. The priest politely declined their request. Not intending to offend any Sinatra fans, but the phrase, “I did it my way” is really not the mantra of Christian living, but opposite of what Jesus taught. Even if we fail many times over, God honors our intent to do things His way, not our way. 

Everyone didn’t always adore and follow Jesus. Although crowds followed Him, He also watched multitudes walk away from Him, when He taught something they didn’t accept. People of every generation still want to do things their way. One day Jesus turned to His closest twelve friends and asked, “ Are you all going to leave Me too?  “Peter answered, “How can we leave ? You have the words of eternal life.”

The disciples didn’t always fully understand what Jesus was talking about, but they were following Him because of who He is, with the intent to do His will. We also follow the person of Jesus, not just a set of rules or values. Like the disciples, we may fail, but following Jesus is a kind of commitment, that keeps us coming back. We trust Him even when we don’t understand what He is teaching us. It’s in those times that we realize, this is what carrying our cross is all about. 

There’s a true story of a Japanese Buddhist soldier, during WWII, who became a traitor to Japan, was captured and thrown into the same prison camp along with other American soldiers. The prison camp guards routinely tortured that Japanese prisoner of war more than others. 

One American soldier who was imprisoned with him, felt compassion for the man and would care for his wounds and share his food with him, each time he was thrown back into the prison cell, after being beaten and tortured. 

One day, he was beaten so bad, the American soldier thought, “I’ve shared everything with this poor man except my faith, so he knelt over the man and said to him,” You might not make it through the night, but I want you to know that if you give your life to Jesus, He will take you to Heaven to live with Him forever.” 

The Japanese soldier looked at him and said, “If Jesus is anything like you, then I can’t wait to meet Him.” That story really touched my heart. It shows that we are not here to teach or preach morals and values, we are here to be Christ to this world. It’s the essence of what discipleship was meant to be, Christ shining His light through each of us. 

I’m sure that the American soldier was praying every day to survive that horrific prison camp, and to get back home to his family. He did survive and made it home, but God’s will for him was to show the love of Christ to someone else while he was there. God has a purpose in our pain, and desires to shine His light through us, even in the most horrific circumstances.

We follow Jesus in spite of our heartbreaks, tragedies, illness, pain and loss, by asking for God’s will to be done, because we believe that He is a good and loving God, in the bad times as well as the good. 

Lord, make us better disciples as we follow you, seeking that your will be done, so that your light can shine through in all that we say and do. Amen

“The lamp of God was not yet extinguished, and Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was.

The Lord called to Samuel, who answered, “Here I am.”

1 Samuel 3:3-4 (NAB)

Samuel was the little boy who was dedicated to the temple by his mother, Hannah. It’s a bible story often seen in children’s books, about a boy who hears the call of God in the silence of night, while he is sleeping, but the story of Samuel has a lot more to say about how God’s heart can be grieved, just like the heart of any human parent. 

The high priest Eli had a grieved heart over his two adult sons, who behaved irreverently as priests. Bible stories reveal that God has the heart of a parent, who also becomes deeply grieved over the sin He observes on the earth.

There are details in this Bible story that are never mentioned in any children’s books. Eli’s two adult sons were abusing the sacred office of their priesthood with bribery, sexual promiscuity and greed. Eli, being a very passive father, knew about his sons’ immoral behavior and begged them to reform, but he never had the courage to take action and remove them from the priesthood.  

God’s heart was grieved over Eli’s sons and planned to raise up Samuel to be a priest in their place, but Samuel was still a young boy, being educated, learning the roles and rituals of Hebrew priesthood from Eli. 

One night God spoke directly to Samuel, audibly calling his name waking him up out of his sleep. After the third time Samuel heard his name called, he answered “Hineni”, meaning “Here I am”, in Hebrew. It seems to be the first step to hearing God speak to us in the silence, saying, “Here I am, Lord.” God revealed to Samuel that the sons of Eli had grieved His heart and He was going to remove them from the priesthood. 

Samuel went to Eli to report what the Lord told him. This was the start of Samuel’s personal relationship with God. He grew to become a great prophet, who understood God’s heart, as to what grieved Him as well as what pleased Him. Samuel went on to guide the future kings of Israel, and was the first to coin the phrase, 

“Man looks at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart.”

God intends for all people to have a friendship with Him as Samuel did. We can see it in Genesis, when God would walk in the silence of the garden with Adam and Eve each day. They had a relationship of walking and talking with God, until they later hid from Him. Then God called Abraham and Moses His friends, as they listened to His voice in the silence. None of these people were perfect, yet God had a relationship with them. Even David, who stumbled in worse ways than anyone, was called by God “a man after His own heart.”

Jesus now calls us His friends, and no longer servants. 

(John 15:15)

Friends share their joys and sorrows with one another. This would mean that Jesus wants to share his joys with us, as well as what grieves Him. On the other side of that, He wants us to be honest and open, sharing all that grieves us as well. When we hold in our grievances and frustrations, we miss out on the great benefit of intimate friendship with Jesus. 

Repentance precedes friendship with Jesus, which is the beauty of Christianity. His death and resurrection changed the whole dynamic between God and people forever. Even those who have stumbled morally, like Eli’s sons, are no longer cut off, but invited to repent, return to God and receive forgiveness, cleansed by the blood of Jesus. 

God sees our hearts especially when we are grieving, and He is calling us to see His. He wants to walk and talk with us in the silence of whatever garden we happen to be in. We are all at different stages of listening, but in the silence of the night or the garden, God is always calling us. He patiently waits until our response is like Samuel’s, “Here I am, speak Lord, I am listening.” 

(1 Samuel 3:10)

I once heard a true story that reminds us of how God reaches out to every soul in silence. A prostitute was flipping through radio stations in her car one day, when she heard a Christian message of love and redemption that sparked something deep within her. In the silence of her car, God’s voice called her out of her lifestyle. Her heart was ripe and ready and her soul was awakened to the call of repentance. The Holy Spirit changed her life ever since. 

Lord, help us to shut off all the outside noises, so we may hear you in the silence, so that we speak less and listen more attentively to your voice. Amen

“With my mouth I will give thanks abundantly to the Lord;
And I will praise Him in the midst of many.” 

Psalm 109:30 (NASB)

The Psalms and the Proverbs always emphasize using our mouth to give thanks to the Lord. There’s something about our spoken words, instead of just thinking it. Scripture tells us that life and death are in the power of our tongue. 

The words we speak can lift our spirit and give life to those who listen to us. Too often, I catch myself saying negative things when something doesn’t go the way I expected. With sarcasm, I tend to mutter to myself, “story of my life,“ but then I stop myself because it certainly is not the story of my life.

The story of my life is God’s love and mercy that was shown to me before I ever gave Him a thought. By the time I was a young adult, He sought for me like a Shepherd searches for a lost sheep, and He found me. He transformed my heart by His love and grace, and Jesus became a real person to me. Since then, I discovered the amazing love of God, who waits so patiently for us to come home, no matter how long it takes. 

I am more inclined now, to keep my words in check, so that I speak words that God agrees with, since He is my heavenly Father. The words we say to ourselves and to others are more impactful than we realize, and can influence a person’s destiny. By taking charge of our tongue and the words that come out of our mouths, we can change our entire outlook and someone else’s life as well. 

The epistle of James has a lot to say about the human tongue. He said that though the tongue is a small part of the body, it only takes a small spark to set a great forest on fire. (James 3: 5)

Words can be like a refreshing rain of blessing or a spark that starts a destructive fire. That’s the power of the tongue.

Faith is an attitude of the heart which eventually flows out of our mouths. Since our words reflect our faith, no wonder Jesus asked, 

“When the Son of Man comes,will He find faith on the earth?” 

(Luke 18:8)

We never know how some small, simple thing we say, can inspire faith in someone else. It may be a good idea to start each new week dedicating our tongue and our words to God. 

A few years ago, I wrote a meditation explaining how God answered my prayer to reduce my cable bill, while keeping all my favorite Christian channels. One of my friends who read it, texted me to ask which christian cable stations I received, because she was in the process of changing her cable package.

I was driving and running errands when she texted me so I couldn’t respond right away. Hours later, I quickly looked up those stations on my TV and texted her the names of the four christian stations in my cable package.

What I didn’t know, is that she was already on the phone with her cable company at the time that I sent the text. While she was telling the customer service lady on the phone that she wanted Christian channels in her cable package, the customer service person began sharing her own faith story. She shared how she had just rededicated her life to God after becoming a new mom, with hopes of raising her child in the faith. She asked my friend what stations she recommended so that she could order the same ones in her own cable package. 

At this exact moment in her phone conversation, my text message came through, listing the four stations. She received my text at that moment, and shared those Christian cable networks with the customer service representative. 

The timing of everything was so providential in how the customer service lady connected with my friend, along with the timing of my text message arrival, that it couldn’t be better planned by anyone other than God. 

The Lord knows who is seeking Him and He also knows who is willing to speak about Him, and He loves connecting people at the right place and time. The power of the tongue is a beautiful thing when words are used to bless the Lord, and draw someone else closer to God at the same time.

Lord, let our mouths always give thanks and praise to you, making our words a blessing to others we meet today. Amen