Only By Grace

In a candid and profound speech, Miss Alice sheds light on a subtly destructive pattern prevalent in many modern marriages. She emphasizes that women often do not intentionally harm their husbands, yet through normalized behaviors and cultural expectations, they inadvertently erode the foundation of their relationships over time. Her message is a call for honest reflection—highlighting seven quiet habits that, left unchecked, can gradually turn a loving partner into a distant, disengaged spouse. Source The Power of Unspoken Expectations The first and perhaps most common issue Miss Alice discusses is the expectation that a man should intuitively know what his wife needs without clear communication. Many women find it unromantic or unnecessary to explicitly state their needs, waiting instead for subtle signals or silent cues. When husbands fail to read these signals, women may respond with withdrawal or frustration, which the husbands interpret as disinterest or failure. This dynam...

Sa isang tapat at malalim na pahayag, binigyang-linaw ni Miss Alice ang isang banayad ngunit mapanirang gawi na laganap sa maraming modernong kasal. Binigyang-diin niya na madalas ay hindi sinasadya ng mga babae na saktan ang kanilang mga asawa, gayunpaman, sa pamamagitan ng mga nakasanayang kilos at kultural na ekspektasyon, dahan-dahan nilang napapahina ang pundasyon ng kanilang relasyon sa paglipas ng panahon. Ang kanyang mensahe ay isang panawagan para sa tapat na pagsusuri sa sarili—na nagtatampok ng pitong tahimik na gawi na, kapag hinayaang magpatuloy, ay maaaring unti-unting gawing malamig at mailap ang isang mapagmahal na kabiyak. Source Ang Kapangyarihan ng mga Hindi Binibigkas na Ekspektasyon Ang una at marahil pinakakaraniwang isyung tinalakay ni Miss Alice ay ang ekspektasyon na dapat ay kusang alam ng lalaki kung ano ang kailangan ng kanyang asawa nang walang malinaw na komunikasyon. Maraming kababaihan ang nag-iisip na hindi romantiko o hindi na kailangang sabihin na...

Fulfill your duties to your wife in order to avoid the following unhappy results: Failure of your wife to fulfill her duties towards you Such will cause you much affliction She will be bitter towards you in the end Summary of your Duties as Christian Husbands: You are responsible to undertake the government of your family including your wife. This ability consists: In holiness and spiritual wisdom. An ungodly, irreligious man is both a stranger and an enemy to the most important part of family-government. In due acquaintance with the works of your calling. He that is utterly unacquainted with the members of his family, will be very unfit to govern them. He must be acquainted both with the common temper and infirmities of mankind, that he may know how much is to be borne with, and also with the particular temper, and faults, and virtues of those whom he is to govern. And he must have prudence to give them direction in accomplishing their tasks; and justice to deal with every one as they...

1. For ministers of God to be convinced not just by lip-service, but demonstrated in action that prayerlessness is indeed a sin. “A bankrupt who had a millstone of debts around his neck would not delay long in using blank checks signed by a millionaire and specially donated to him for his distress. Why then do we Christians delay in using the ‘exceeding great and precious promises’ which have already been signed by the Pierced Hand?” (Leonard Ravenhill, Revival Praying, 2010, p. 63). “We may call prayerlessness neglect, or lack of spiritual appetite, or loss of vision. But that which matters is what God calls it. In I Samuel 12:23 God calls prayerlessness sin: ‘God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you.’ Prayerlessness is disobedience, for God's command is that men ought always to pray and not to faint. To be prayerless is to fail God, for He says, ‘Ask of me.’ Prayerlessness is sin” (Ibid., p. 64). "Prayer links man's impotence to God's ...

Some say that the LGBT acronym should be made more inclusive – a prime and overarching value today – so as to include other possibilities. One proposal is LGBTQQICAPF2K+. Here is what the new proposed acronym stands for: L – lesbian G – gay B – bisexual T – transgender Q – queer Q – questioning I – intersex C – curious A – asexual A – agender A – ally P – pansexual P – polysexual F – friends and family 2 – two-spirit K – kink + - the possibility of more, to be added later. By including ‘allies’ and ‘friends and family,’ LGBTQQICAPF2K+ is so inclusive that it includes heterosexuals! Meanwhile the number of genders keeps multiplying. A website devoted to keeping track of the number of genders currently lists fifty-six, with the provision for continually adding more. These include: Adamasgender: a gender which refuses to be categorized Aerogender: a gender that is influenced by your surroundings Affectugender: a gender that is affected by mood s...

In his 114 page book, Coronavirus and Christ,  John Piper responded in Part 2 to the question,  "What is God doing through the coronavirus?" Attempts like this to answer such question may appear presumptuous and insensitive in a time that many a people are hurting and confused. This charge of presumption and insensitivity can only be answered if one will take the time read the book. In fact, one of his relatives was infected with Covid-19. Moreover, in addition to the 2005 diagnosis that he had a prostate cancer, he no longer expected to see the publication of this book because of his age and the condition of his lungs.  In this article, I just want the share an excerpt from Piper's book showing his response to that controversial question: # 1 - "God is giving the world in the coronavirus outbreak, as in all other calamities, a physical picture of the moral horror and spiritual ugliness of God-belittling sin." “In other words, physical evil is a parable, a drama...

Ang unang prinsipyo ng tipan sa Banal na Kasulatan ay ang sovereignty ng Diyos. Sa larangan ng teoryang pang-ekonomiya, ang prinsipyong ito ay nahayag sa doktrina ng orihinal na pagmamay-ari ng Diyos sa lahat ng nilikha, kabilang ang sangkatauhan. Bilang nagmamay-ari ng lahat, hindi direktang kinokontrol ng Diyos ang mundo. Bagkus ay pinamamahalaan niya ang Kaniyang pagmamay-ari sa pamamagitan ng sangkatauhan sa buong kasaysayan. Dahil sa ipinagkaloob ng Diyos ang responsibilidad sa sangkatauhan para sa pangangasiwa sa mundo, ang bawat indibidwal ay dapat maging responsable sa gawain na ipinagkatiwala sa Kaniya ng Diyos. Ang bawat indibidwal ay magkakaiba. Ang mga tao ay may magkakaibang talento, layunin, interes, libangan, at lahat ng iba pa na nauugnay sa produksyon ng ekonomiya. Ang bawat tao ay may pananagutan sa anumang mga kasanayan o pakinabang na ibinigay sa kaniya sa buhay na ito. Ang pangunahing alituntunin ng pagiging responsible ay ito: ang sinuman na pinagkatiwalaan ...

Ang unang kabanata ay tungkol sa pagmamay-ari. Sa pamamagitan ng pagtalakay sa paksang ito, nagsimula ang may-akda sa doktrina ng paglikha. Para sa kanya, ang ganitong klase ng panimula ang nagbigay ng kaibahan sa kaniyang pamamaraan kung ihahambing sa pamamaraan ng iba pang mga ekonomista. Sa pamamagitan ng paggigiit sa kahalagahan ng doktrina ng paglikha sa ekonomiya, pinangatuwiranan niya na ang daigdig, tao, mga batas sa ekonomiya, at paglago ng ekonomiya ay hindi lubusang mauunawaan ng hiwalay sa Diyos. Ang doktrina ng paglikha ay nagsilbing batayan sa katotohanan na tanging ang Diyos lamang ang orihinal na may pagmamay-ari sa lahat na malinaw na nakasaad sa Awit 24: 1-2 at maraming iba pang mga talata sa Bibliya. At dahil ang Diyos ang lumikha ng mundo, samakatuwid Siya ang orihinal at ganap na May-ari ng lahat. Ang ideya samakatuwid ng pagmamay-ari ay “theocentric.” Sinasabi nito sa atin na ang pang-ekonomiyang konsepto ng pagmamay-ari sa huli ay isang teolohikal na ideya. Ang ...

The first chapter is all about ownership. By discussing this topic, the author starts with the doctrine of creation. For him, this doctrine separates his approach from all other approaches by other economists. By insisting on the importance of the doctrine of creation to economics, he argues that the universe, man, economic laws, and economic growth are not autonomous. The doctrine of creation establishes the idea of original ownership , which belongs to God alone as explicitly stated in Psalm 24:1–2 and many other biblical passages. And since it is God who created the world, He is therefore the original and absolute Owner of everything. The idea therefore of ownership is basically theocentric. This tells us that the economic concept of ownership is ultimately a theological idea. The concept of ownership cannot be properly understood apart from God as the ultimate Owner of all things. Providence is another corollary doctrine that cannot be separated from the doctrine of creation. Thi...

Reading the Daily Bread for today, the Lord is telling me that waiting is also a time of preparation both in life and in trading. Since this is the case, impatience and impulsive buying and selling of shares have no place.  Turning to Isaiah 42:5-9, the prophet declares that the Creator and Giver of life has called Israel to open the eyes of the blind and to set the prisoners free. What greater blindness there is than not seeing the power of God displayed in creation and the greatness of his love displayed in redemption! What worst prison there is than the bondage in the kingdom of darkness! God entrusted Israel with his righteous decrees and laws and by observing them, she fulfills her calling (Deuteronomy 4:5-8). In the New Testament, we now know that such calling is given to the Body of Christ.     Forgive us Father for our impatience. Father, forgive us also for failing to fulfill the task that you have entrusted to us. Open the eyes of the blind and set the pris...

Consolidating my prayers for the months of March and April, I came up with the following prayer concern for the month of May: Help us live our lives with eternity in mind. Help us to live in love, joy, holiness and power. Let PTSCAS produce excellent, prayerful, joyful, holy, loving, powerful and productive missionaries, preachers, biblical counselors, theological educators, and Christian teachers, even chaplains and caregivers. Help us return to our first love and help us love you Lord for the remaining short and final years of our lives here on earth. Help us shepherd your people in love. Forgive us for taking your love for granted. Thank you that you are our closest Friend, our dearest Confidant, our heavenly Bridegroom. Help us sleep early so that we can wake up early and invest in eternity by spending time with you in communion and intercession. Help us to see the prison bars of our suffering as rubies and gold, as precious stones. Thank you for helping us realize that both the ex...

The real interest rate in the country is minus 2.7% since the current interest rate is at 2% and the inflation rate is 4.7%. With this kind of economic and monetary environment, savers are losers and borrowers are winners . “Revving up economic activity” is the goal why BSP keeps interest rate at the current level. Turning to mises.org for guidance on how to see this kind of environment, I stumbled upon Murray N. Rothbard’s article about The Interest Rate Question . According to him, this is one topic where “financial writers are mired in hopeless confusion.” If this is the case then, “how can we expect the public to make any sense of what is going on?” And then at the middle section of the article, he identified the real cause of lower interest rates. He describes this as “a repeated injection of inflationary bank credit by the Fed (In our case, replace the Fed with BSP).” Such monetary policy will “keep the artificial and unsound economic boom going (in our current situation, “revvi...

No one is above the law, and that includes even the government. If you see a government violating the moral law, what do you think will happen? Will the Supreme Lawgiver keep silent as His law is being trampled by human governments? One example of such violation is now being done by the government of Australia by moving hard left . The policymakers are either blinded by their ideology or they intentionally take for granted the long-term destructive consequences of such tax policy. They are not aware that by violating God’s law on private property, they are actually committing economic suicide. How many governments in the world are following the same course? May God forbid that the Philippine government will choose the same path! 

Continuing my reading of the second chapter of  Thinking. Loving. Doing. A Call to Glorify God with Heart and Mind, I stumbled again with another brilliant insight written by R. Albert Mohler Jr. This time he is sharing about the "three operating conditions of belief in Western civilization" (p. 62). He took this insight from Charles Taylor's book, A Secular Age. According to the book, the three operating conditions of belief are the impossibility of disbelief in God, the possibility of disbelief in God, and the impossibility of belief in God.  The impossibility of disbelief in God characterized the pre-modern era. The word atheist at  that time didn't exist, because it "was not an available category" (ibid.). The existence of God is the underlying assumption of the age though different concepts of God were recognized.   With the advent of the modern era, the operating condition of belief shifted from the impossibility of disbelief to the possibility of di...

While doing my devotion this morning, I stumbled with an interesting section in the book  Thinking. Loving. Doing. A Call to Glorify God with Heart and Mind. I am now on the 2nd chapter. I am reading the article written by R. Albert Mohler Jr., The Way the World Thinks: Meeting the Natural Mind in the Mirror and in the Marketplace. I just want to share that interesting section on pages 61 to 62.   Here is its excerpt: In order to understand better the modern mind, consider these five precepts. First, the modern mind is characterized by postmodern anti-realism. There are people in American society who are not sure that what we are talking about is even real. They argue that the terms of morality—statements about what is right and wrong—are merely a language game. The second precept is moral relativism . Although most of the people we know do not actually hold to anti-realism, it has filtered down into the culture as moral relativism. Most unregenerate Americans today are...

CCF is doing what God tells her to do. Is God saying that PCP churches will imitate CCF? What shall we do with the almost 40 years of our existence? How shall we assess our unique experiences? What shall we do with our wounded soldiers? What shall we do with those who are emotionally and relationally unfit?   Though CCF made repeated qualifications that there is nothing wrong with the traditional way of doing the ministry of the church such as the emphasis on preaching, the clergy, and the classroom, but one cannot avoid to deduce that to fully implement this "paradigm shift," theologians and educators have no place. In fact, they are part of the obstacles.  There is too much to swallow. I can only bite a piece or two. What the speakers said are true. How can we contest actual experiences?    To follow CCF as a denomination, we have to forget our past and start from scratch. It appears to me that everything we do in PCP is wrong from the very start. How can we u...

Ecclesiastes 1 1. The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem: 2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” 3 What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? 4 Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. 5 The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. 6 The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. 7 All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again. 8 All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. 9 What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. 11 No one remembe...