Category: Articles

He’s alive!

On By Naty MatosIn ArticlesLeave a comment

easter-empty-tombIt is time to rejoice! There’s a party in heaven and in earth. The best party ever. They saw him bleeding, battered and bruised. Once he had exhaled and taken down from the cross his breathless body lied in the arms of his mother who cleaned his face with her tears. He was probably getting cold real quick as he had lost so much blood.

A friend of the family had a tomb that had not been used and gave it for them to put his body in there. Because it was the Sabbath and nobody was supposed to do anything, everyone left. The women came the next day to do the habitual embalming of that time and guess what? He was nowhere to be found.

Some thought that maybe someone had stole his body and they were starting to feel sadness, but then two angels told the women that he had risen as he had promised.  (Rephrasing from Luke 23 and 24)

If we think about the purpose for which we were created and how well we doslide-02 (not really) and that even then we obtain redemption because on a day like today he lives. 

If we think about other religions who worship someone who was a prophet, but there is an actual grave site where their body lies. Or those who believe that an unanimated object is their god. We have a living, breathing, Almighty, All Powerful GOD!!!!

In life, He won! In death, He won! The movie has a happy ending. Rejoice, he’s alive, he’s risen from the dead, he won it for us.!!

Happy Resurrection Sunday!!

Big secret blown up

On By Naty MatosIn Articles3 Comments

Today’s WordPress prompt was, “What is the biggest secret you failed to keep? I had to think long and hard about this one as my regular line of work and most of my ministry work is surrounded by confidentiality clauses and agreements; therefore there’s not much that I have revealed in terms of secrets. I also don’t tend to divulge secrets anyway so it took me a while, but then a light went off on the personal realm the one I found was life changing.

 It is customary for most churches to require a pre-marital course for couples. I attended to one of these when it was my “bridal time” and met two other couples preparing for their nuptials with whom we became very close. We became so close that after the course we started helping each other in the wedding preparations. My wedding was the one in the middle of the other two.

We attended the first wedding and after that, the now wife and the wife to be became my little helpers. The grooms became friends and tended to hang out together when we girls were submerged in lace and flowers. As we were very focused on our tasks we had not noticed that the third groom (the one whose wedding was right after mine) had developed a certain affection for one of my neighbors, so every time it was time to come over to my place for my wedding things he was quite eager.

This neighbor was my lifetime friend and at some point told me about the handsome guy who was visiting my house and inviting her out. I quickly pointed out to her that the lady with him was nobody else but his fiancée. I was in a predicament. If I told my new friend about what her fiancé had done I was going to break her heart and probably cancel her wedding, but at the same time I would have been devastated if I would have allowed her to marry a cheater. So I did, I called the girl and told her about her groom and my neighbor.

The fun part was that the ladies got together and plotted a plan. My neighbor accepted the date, but instead of one, both women showed up. The soon to be married lady and I did not keep a relationship, but she said she was grateful for the revelation. As painful as this was, I really don’t regret doing it as I would have appreciated if anyone would have done it for me if it was me the one being cheated on.

In retrospective, nobody was asked to keep it a secret, but it was information that I knew that the affected person didn’t have. People forget that what’s done in the dark always comes to light. That it’s important to do the right thing, just because is the right thing to do. It usually is a good assistance to a good night sleep and I love my sleep.

Blessings!

A life without internet

On By Naty MatosIn Articles1 Comment

As some of you know, I’m participating in a WordPress challenge to increase my blog postings this year. To assist us in the challenge, WordPress sends us daily prompts to help with topic ideas. If they are appropriate for my blog I use them or a modified version of it, or I don’t. Sometime in the last few weeks the prompt was: Can you live without the internet? I said no, end of discussion, not much to write about it.

 

God has a way to show you things. I was watching stand up comedian Billy Gardell (the guy from Mike and Molly) and he was saying that he wanted for people under twenty five years old to put their phones away for two hours a day and have a real conversation. Then after the whole Super bowl facebook news read spitting car I had to give that subject a little bit more thought.

 Can I live without the internet? Yes. The reason why my knee jerk reaction was to say no, it’s because we have come to a point where the internet is so accessible that I can’t see how that would happen. I have internet at work, home and on my phone, so I guess the response was more geared to the accessibility of it.

 Like I said in a previous post, society is slowly drawing us to a dependency. You can’t find a job by knocking door by door and being met as a person. Your information precedes you electronically. My poor elderly mother couldn’t get some information from her doctor’s office because she doesn’t have internet access (of course I pulled it out for her) Technology is a good thing and I think if all of the sudden we lived without internet some of those in my generation and older would be able to adjust. I’m not so sure about the newer folks.

 We’re not teaching handwriting in schools anymore, or mathematical thinking in paper. We are relying on the unreliable. Why do I say that? Give or take 75% of us work with a computerized system (that’s to be way conservative) and how often does the system crash and loses information? We hear in the news all the time how digitalized personal information is stolen by identity robbers. Is that where our trust is?

 So in perspective, I can’t live without God, water, food, clothes and shelter; everything else is truly a luxury and a blessing given. We should appreciate what we have been entrusted and be good stewards of those extras. As a nation we are filthy rich even when we don’t think so. If we look at other countries, some people live without clean water, something that we take for granted.

Blessings

Psalm 25:1
in you, LORD my God, I put my trust.

Is the use of medicine opposing faith?

On By Naty MatosIn Articles1 Comment

As a believer, a Christian seeks to do God’s will and remain in it. There are times where if we’re not careful, we can take a legalistic approach to the Word of God that could hinder God’s purpose in our lives. In this case I’m talking about sickness and healing.

 God CAN heal! I have no doubt. God WANTS to heal! I believe that too. Then, is it lack of faith to use medicine to deal with our illnesses? I’m not so sure. By medicine I’m not entering into the argument of natural medicine versus pharmacology. Although I personally believe that God placed one on the earth for us and gave the wisdom for the other, but that is a total separate discussion.

I’ve heard fellow Christians refuse medical treatment because they think that it would demonstrate a lack of faith in God’s power to heal. I’ve been in situations where I’ve been sick and I’ve been asked if I had prayed. I even heard someone say that they didn’t even take an aspirin but they prayed all things out. I’m not discounting the need for healing prayer and declarations. I’ve experience the power of the healing prayer. At the same time I don’t believe that I should not take vitamins, supplements or medicine just because I prayed and that the use of one doesn’t mean I have no faith in the other. 

In researching for this subject, I came across a message board that was discussing the issue and one of the participants said something that struck a cord. “This would be like saying that we will not work or pay our bills because God is our provider” It struck a cord not in a negative way; it just gave me a picture of the Israelites crossing the desert receiving manna and birds as provision. Should we now not work or go to the supermarket because that would be us telling God that we do not have faith on his provision? I don’t think so.

 I believe that just like with provision, God utilizes several methods to deliver healing. The quickest example for me was the healing of the blind man. Jesus made a paste from dirt and his own spit and healed the man and then had the man wash his face. (John 9:1-41) Jesus is God and didn’t have to go through all that trouble, but he chose to go that route.

 So what to do? Have faith in your healing, pray for your healing, believe in your healing, and ask God through which way he wants you to obtain the healing, via fasting and prayer, via forgiveness (yes, resentment and unforgiveness makes us sick) or by simply using something that he placed on earth or in our wisdom for our benefit.

I found this great pamphlet about sickness, healing and medicine all based on Scriptures that I hope you find as interesting as I did. 

http://www.eternalgod.org/lit/booklets/healing_view.pdf

Blessings!

I found the parents!

On By Naty MatosIn Articles2 Comments

Every time a child does something wrong the obvious question is, where are the parents? After looking at this commercial closely I felt sadden. I found the parents! One allying against their partner and the other one too scared to exercise his authority.  I’m not starting a campaign against “Tide” but it is sad that a household name would take advantage of one of the symptoms of our decay as a society to profit from it.

 

There’s so much wrong with this commercial, it’s a sad true of the reality we’re living. Families are not working together in raising their children, children blatantly defying their parents and the parents feeling powerless to exercise their authority.

Here are some points that I saw in this:

  • Common values: This girl is a teenager; someone bought or allowed her to buy said skirt. It is obvious that both parents are not in accord with what is appropriate and not.  That itself it’s a recipe for disaster, ““Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand” (Matthew 12:25)
  • Respect: It is obvious that the father figure is not respected in this scenario; his opinion is not only ignored but blatantly undermined as the girl parades her now clean skirt in front of her father knowing that she’s defying his wishes. She feels empowered to do so, as her mother approved her behavior.
  • Alliance: The mother allies with her daughter against her husband, forgetting that he’s the co-parent. She also undermines him in trying to protect his daughter. This is one of those examples were parents try to be their child’s friend instead of their parent and when the child goes out of control they seek the other parent to step up to the plate. By then it’s too late, the child doesn’t respect either. Parents should work together to raise their kids, not against each other. “Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them” (Proverbs 13:24)
  • Powerless: The saddest part is that the father felt that there was nothing he could do. He had to resort to try to ruin the skirt to avoid his daughter from wearing it. At what point will parents understand that they are the adults and that they make the rules? This father should have felt empowered to disapprove of the piece of clothing upon being bought or seen for the first time on his daughter and not have to resort to tricks to avoid confrontation. Parents, the teenager that “hates” you now for making them follow the rules, is the one that will be grateful when he or she grows up.  I’m not a parent, but from what I’ve seen the ones who grew up with parents as friends were the ones that once out in the world were lost feeling that they were being treated unfairly because the world will make them follow the rules and suffer the consequences of their actions.

 

Food for thought…

Forgive me Father for I have sinned

On By Naty MatosIn Articles5 Comments
Santo Domingo. Confession of a woman.
Image via Wikipedia

Confession is a part of the life of a Christian. The Bible talks about the importance of confession to be free from our sins. Each Christian denomination conceptualizes confession in a different way. As far as I know only the Catholic Church has a structure way of conceiving confession. In this structure the person reviews their conscience, goes to their priest, tells them all their sins, the priest assigns them a penance and once the penance is accomplish the sins are forgiven.

I’m not against confession, or technology for that matter, but I’m pretty baffled by the new I-phone/I-Pad confession application that Apple has recently released. The position of the Catholic Church is that they approve of it, but that it’s not a substitute for face to face confession. What does that even mean? If it’s not a substitute, those using the application would still have to do the face to face? Then, what’s the point!

I also question the potential legal implications for those using the application. Maybe I need to layoff my crime shows but, how confidential will that application be? We know that priest are the only ones covered under legal privilege of  any conversation from someone confessing to them, which I think is unfair for other religious leaders, but that’s another conversation. At the same time it’s known that if someone commits a crime or an indiscretion it would be covered under the traditional confession, but if the phone is tapped, could the police potentially have access to that information or even a private investigator?

From the spiritual standpoint, I think it would miss the purpose of confessing to another human being. We confess to God for the purpose of forgiveness, but as indicated in James 5:16 “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” Confession to another human being is for the person’s own healing.  How much of the counseling, prayer and healing can occur during this electronic process?

As much as I favor technology to compliment with information our spiritual walk, this is one of those occasions were in my opinion you can’t substitute human contact.

Just my humble opinion, comments agreeing or disagreeing are all welcome!

Blessings

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Jesus on Twitter

On By Naty MatosIn Articles1 Comment
Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase

Continuing some of this technology talk, I was going through a phase of condemnation about my quiet time with God. Every morning I try to at least read a verse and meditate on it, but I usually don’t find that verse in my actual big bible on my nightstand. I felt bad thinking that because I was not opening the book all the time I was not doing enough.

First of all, I discovered that reading the Word of God is for me and not for God. I always felt that reading the bible was my ritual of worship and that it was done to please God, so I would read some, kind of like you read a billboard on the side of the road and my duty was done. As I’ve grown in my faith I’ve realized that although reading the Word of God it is an act of worship, it’s my heart and meditation in the Word what makes it an act of worship. Also, the bible is my manual to seek God’s wisdom and will for my life, so it’s actually for me that I should read it.

I had this idea that in order to do it “right” I had to do it with the actual big paper book and that’s why I was feeling bad about it. So I stopped being religious about it and realized that I had been reading, meditating and studying the Word of God, it was just in less traditional ways. So I wanted to share with you some of the ways I do so, maybe it will help you expose yourself more to the Word.

  • Biblegateway.com- Sometimes when reading the word you get a particular message about what God wants to say to you, but sometimes you want to know about what the bible says about a specific subject and it can be hard to find things, especially if you don’t have too many memorized scriptures or if you’re like me that I know the bible says something about that but I don’t know where. This site has a keyword search field that makes it very easy to search by topic or keywords.

            This site also has daily newsletters that come to your e-mail and are very educational.

  • Bible.com- it’s very similar to the one above. To me the distinction is that this particular site has some bibles studies about some very specific topics.
  • Twitter- Yes, believe it or not twitter has several “tweeps” that post scriptures all day. If you have a Smartphone and you have twitter on your phone, you can follow these people and wherever you are you can meditate on a verse. There are people who actually pray on Twitter everyday, twice a day (@Virtual_Abbey) some of my favorites are: @TopBibleVerses, @GreatBibleVerse, @DailyVerseTweet, and @Gods_Lighthouse You can stop and meditate wherever you are. Of course there are pastors, preachers and speakers who are on Twitter that also post very good things, but I’m focusing on those who just post scriptures. (side note: and if you’re on twitter I hope you’re following us as well @therisingmuse)
  • Bible on your phone- most people have smartphones these days and there is a free bible application available for most of them. I have a blackberry and the one in my phone not only allows bible reading in most popular versions, but it allows keyword searches and has some bible studies as well.
  • Facebook- I’ll be honest, I don’t use this one. I do have facebook on my phone, but I rarely look at it, but I’ve seen in some of my friends news feeds some bible verses pages.

 So being a technology geek should not keep you from feeding your soul.

 Do you know of any other sources and want to share? Feel free to comment we would love to hear from you…

Blessings

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Facebook News Feeds, really?

On By Naty MatosIn Articles4 Comments

Yesterday was the big day, Super bowl XLV where the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers were going for the grand honor of being the best of American football for 2011. Congratulations to the Packers on their win. Disclaimer to all football fans: I know very little about football, so forgive me in advance for any wrong terminology used in this post. The subject is not football anyway.

I like to watch the Super bowl, just because of the commercials. Advertising agencies get very creative with these mini movies that have very little to do with the products they’re selling and more to do with the entertainment of the viewers.  In between commercials I admit to be smitten watching the Puppy bowl on Animal Planet. It makes more sense to me to see the puppies playing, no offense, that’s just my preference.

The thing that came to my attention was the commercial for the new Chevy Cruze.  Their pitch was that the car reads your facebook status while driving. Really? I know social media plays an important role in our modern life, but our facebook news feed? Is that how shallow we have become as a society? Just like a friend commented sarcastically, “Of course we need to know that our farm is ready for harvest”. One thing is to reunite with friends, have fun online, but we are creating a new undisguised addiction that could be unhealthy for both children and adults.

People have lost their jobs for things they have posted in social media or the use of it during inappropriate times. We see commercials were families at the table are not communicating; instead they are using text, e-mail to communicate when they are in front of each other, and we laugh at those commercials, but that’s becoming our sad reality. Slowly we are buying into a culture of alienation. There’s no time for family, prayer, creativity, reading or to look at ourselves, we’re too busy being entertained.

Not to be a hypocrite, I have a facebook and twitter account. I look at my Blackberry more times than I should. I play Farmville and Café World, but I do enjoy a good conversation with a friend or a family member. I like to have silent times to actually place my thoughts in orders. I like the silence in the sweet presence of my Creator who doesn’t speak through the noise. All this is kind of hard when you spend your time entertaining yourself with other things. I think that like with other things moderation and balance are the key word here and we’re losing sight of it.

Just my opinion.

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Disclaimer: images taken from the internet, they are not mine. Page me if credit required-therisingmuse@gmail.com

Monster

On By Naty MatosIn Articles2 Comments
Kanye West
Image via Wikipedia

 

It’s rare that I would speak about someone in specific, but I think this particular situation warrants me to call out the particular person behind it. To be honest, since I don’t listen to hip hop music, I didn’t know who Kanye West was until the whole Swift Taylor incident. I do understand that people think that bad publicity is publicity anyway, but people have to measure the responsibility that comes with being in the public eye.

After the said incident, he has been involved in other less than desirable situations. In his public apology, he said he had been affected by his mother’s death and that he needed time to get himself together. I’ve read some feedback about him being mentally disturbed, but it makes me wonder if his whole crew it’s mentally disturbed as well when they go along his shenanigans.

The last Kanye thing is the upcoming release of his video “Monster” in which from the leaked preview, shows dead women, clad in lingerie, hang by chains around their necks. West making sexual moves toward dead or drugged women propped up in a bed, and a naked dead or drugged woman lays sprawled on a sofa.

I wonder how he would feel if this was one of his relatives being displayed in this video. This is another way to denigrate women, promote the numbness of violence towards women, which we have way enough of that. Women were not created to be men playthings or to be objectified. Women are a gift from God and as such they should be treated.

With so many campaigns against domestic violence and against violence against women, this video promotes exactly the opposite. This is not what we want our children to learn.  I encourage you to sign the petition below and send a message to our media producers that we are really done with just accepting anything that they flash in front of our eyes.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/prevent-official-release-of-kanye-wests-women-hating-monster-video

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Process of writing this blog

On By Naty MatosIn Articles2 Comments

I was asked how long it usually takes me to write a blog post. The answer, it depends. I try to write often because it usually means that I’m connected to the source of my inspiration, God.  Also through the process of writing I can learn and understand the spiritual impact of my surroundings and compare it with what the Word says regarding my experiences. There are days were I can be sleeping, and I’m awaken and I just turn on my laptop and start writing and the words flow. Sometimes just a scripture or a situation triggers me to be inspired and write.  If I’m connected and inspired I can even write two or more postings in one day and save the extra ones for rainy days (days where I can’t even remember my name).

On days when I’m not inspired or not connected with God and I’m trying to write just to make sure that all my readers don’t think that I’ve fallen from the face of the earth, a post is like pulling teeth. Nothing makes me flow, nothing makes sense and I end up writing ramblings that I end up not publishing.  This is an inspirational blog, so if I have nothing to say that can enrich my reader’s lives, it’s better for me to shut and see why I don’t have anything enriching my own life that day to share.

After I write the content, I look for the specific scriptures that will exemplify what I’m talking about. I know the words in the bible but not the biblical references and that’s when biblegateway.com becomes my friend.  For example I know that the Word of God says he will renew our strength and that we will be able to fly like eagles, but I have to look up where it says that. (It’s on Isaiah 40:31 by the way)

The last part of the process is the visual additions. Looking for the perfect picture or the perfect song to add can take some time, especially when Google is not cooperative or when our internal WordPress Zemanta (an image system) thinks that we’re talking about dogs when we’re talking about burgers  and it gives you all the wrong images.

Back to the original question, how long does it take me to create and publish a post? On a good day, thirty minutes. On a hard day, which is a day when I can’t find the right or perfect images or sounds, then it can take me up to two hours in any given day.

So now you know the secret behind this blog’s writing.

Have a great day and enjoy this song!