Magdalena Today

Magdalena Today Walking With Jesus Step 1: Be Sure If you have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, you can be sure you are a Christian. You are not a Christian because you go to church, or because you do good things. The Bible says "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9). Christ came to die for our sins, so that "To all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God" (John 1:12). Step 2: The Holy Spirit God has given the gift of the Holy Spirit to those who accept Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. When Jesus left this earth, He said that God His Father would send the Holy Spirit to be in His disciples. If you are a Christian, you can ask God to fill you with His Holy Spirit each and every day. (John 7:37-39) Step 3: Bible God has not left us without help in leading the Christian life. He inspired holy writers over the centuries to write the Bible-- 66 books organized into the New Testament and Old Testament. You can learn about Jesus; learn how to live a Christian life; and study the lives of godly men and women of old by reading the Bible. Start by reading a chapter every day of the book of John in the New Testament and ask God to open your eyes and heart to His truth. Step 4: Church You are not alone in living the Christian life. All the true Christians in the world are now your spiritual brothers and sisters. We encourage you to seek out other Christians near you who can help you grow in your Christian life. You can learn about God; spend time with other believers; worship God; and help and serve others in your local church. (Hebrews 12:1-4) Step 5: Prayer God has given us the privilege of talking with Him. Talking with God is called prayer. We can pray to God at any time; Christ said He would be with us always. God as our heavenly Father loves to spend time with us. We can pray to Him and tell Him we love Him; we can ask Him for His help; we can pray for others. You can pray to God throughout the day, but it is also good to set aside some time each day when you can spend concentrated time in prayer to God. (Philippians 4:6-7) Step 6: Share Your Faith When Jesus left His disciples, He told them that they would be His witnesses--that they were to tell others about Him. As Christians, we have the privilege of telling other people the good news that Christ died for them. There are many ways of doing this: you can talk to people, you can send them an e-mail, you can give them a Christian book. You can also ask God to have His love shine through you. It is important also to pray for people you know who need to come to know Christ. (Matthew 28:18-20) Copyright (c) 2006 Global Media Outreach. All rights reserved. Used by permission" Copyright © 2010. All Rights Reserved.

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Morning Blessings

Morning Blessings Blessing #14: Israel’s Glory Every morning, a set of 15 blessings is recited to express our thanks to G-d for all the things that we, as healthy human beings, are capable of doing. Ba’ruch Ah’tah Ah’doh’nai Eh’lo’hay’nu Melech ha’o’lam oh’tayr Yisrael b’tif’arah. Blessed are You, Lord our G-d, King of the Universe, who crowns Israel with glory. This blessing addresses the unique situation of the Children of Israel. From a religious perspective, the Children of Israel are crowned by the Torah, by our choice to accept the yoke of Heaven and to try and live up to this higher ideal, which brings us glory. From a more down-to-earth perspective, one might note the great achievements of many Jews in the areas of science, literature, art and more, as symbolized by the out-of-proportion numbers of Jewish Nobel Prize winners. --Translation reproduced with permission from The Koren Sacks Siddur, © Koren Publishers Jerusalem Ltd.

Solomon a Biblical Jewish King

Devoting one self

Given how influential the thing to which we devote ourselves ends up being, it's surprising that many people don't even know what it is they've chosen. On the other hand, reasons are like the layers of an onion, one lying inside another, and if we never bother to peel back the outer ones, we'll never be able to catch a glimpse of the innermost one. But if we don't know what it is, that innermost one will pull us around as if it were a finger tugging on a ring in our nose—meaning that we'll do things without thinking in order to satisfy it and retrospectively rationalize our actions. And because we'll mostly do this without thinking, we'll be hard-pressed to stop. Which means that if we want to increase the degree of control we have over ourselves, we should choose our object of devotion wisely. Money remains perhaps the most common object of devotion. And though it's certainly important, if this is the predominant thing around which our lives orbit, a limit will be imposed on the height to which our happiness can rise. The second most common object of devotion is probably other people. And though devoting ourselves to compassionate action seems to place no limit on our ability to become happier, if our object of devotion is a specific person, we'll find it quite difficult to avoid not trying to give them whatever they want, which often isn't at all what they need. Further, as I wrote about in an earlier post, The Good Guy Contract, we'll also put ourselves at risk for needing too much from them: when their wants aren't met, our ability to remain happy will often suffer as well. On the other hand, though pursuing altruistic goals has been shown to increase happiness, we may not want to make other people in general the object of our devotion either. Though the caring for others may be instrumental in securing our own happiness, doing so at the expense of our own happiness is just as clearly problematic. A balance must be struck—a balance that's not so easy to find. Which is why Nichiren Buddhism argues that the object of our devotion should actually be ourselves. Not our selfish, small-minded selves, but rather our wiser, larger selves—the wisdom and compassion inherent in life itself, which Nichiren Buddhism terms the Buddha nature. By devoting ourselves to uncovering this nature and to manifesting it in daily life, Nichiren Buddhism argues, we'll be able to bring all other aspects of our lives into their proper perspective. And, in fact, whenever I've found myself stuck, either unable to achieve a goal or unable to endure a trauma, it's usually because I've made that goal or that trauma my object of devotion. (What else would thinking about something all the time to the exclusion of all other things make it?) But when I've realized this and consciously refocused my attention and interest on manifesting wisdom, barriers seem to fall and forward progress again occurs. Only by manifesting wisdom can we figure out how to balance our concern for ourselves with our concern for others, how much to value money compared to experience, and what we must do to live the happiest life possible. To make the object of our devotion our best selves, then, is to find an object truly worthy of worship.