These bills will be gone easily if we're not wise prioritizing what is best for it!

Do you have money left over at the end of the month that you can use to anything you want?  Say, for a trip out of town, for an extra body pampering, for a special date, for a new toy for your kid, to help someone, or to put into your savings!

Do you know that God would like us to have that?

But why don’t most of us have that extra money at the end of the month?

1.  We are not wise!

“In the house of wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has.” Proverbs 21:20

It isn’t an issue of being rich but an issue of being wise!

2. We think we can be happy if we have MORE than what we currently have!

If that is true the only solution to be happy is to earn more and spend less.  But many people are earning more yet at the end of the month they aren’t happy or have nothing left also.  Some are spending less yet they aren’t happy either.

Do you know why it was so?

It is because it isn’t being thrifty nor an income problem, rather it is a lifestyle problem and when you look deeper it is a SPIRITUAL problem!

If we put God first in everything He will bless us in everything!

When you give God your best He will bless the rest!

Those phrases are the other ways of putting the saying of Jesus: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all of these things will be added to you!”

God said in the Book of Proverbs, “With me are riches and honor.  With me are lasting wealth and success.  My fruit is better than fine gold.  My gifts are better than the finest silver.”

Now resolve to yourself how will you make God first in your finances!

Let me put here a suggestion: Give financially into His storehouse (Malachi 3: 10) – that is His church.

Find a church around your vicinity that is caring for people like you and invest the special part of your finances in to it!

God has a promise when you do that: “…see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have enough for it.” (the last part of Malachi 3: 10)

• Who among you wanted three to four nights a week for yourself and your sweetheart to dine out, watch movie and go to an entertainment place?

• Who wanted more time to spend in the gym, running and getting physical for a better health and a hot body?

• Who among you wanted to have more than one month to go to a vacation get away?

• Who wanted an extra or more than enough left over money to do anything you wanted?

I guess your arms are aching now if I request you to raise your hand if you answer positively to all the questions. Then, if you answer yes, it means you are desperately needing a MARGIN since Yesterday!

You needed MARGIN to enjoy life more!

What is a Margin?  It is the extra space in a pad of paper or in a page of your note book where you can write any extra point, important thought or just entertain yourself by drawing cartoon characters of your teacher or your boss.

In life Margin is anything available beyond what do we needed! It is anything where the best things happens. It is something most of us missing and do not have because of prioritizing the seemingly essential and urgent things we thought we needed to work for, to acquire or to accomplish.

To give concrete examples:

1. We do not have extra “Time Margin” because we work longer to earn more money to sustain the needs of our loved ones but as a result we lost connection with them.
2. We do not have extra “Time Margin” due to the demands of life that we neglect health practices so our body suffers.
3. We do not have extra “Time Margin” because we needed more time for our daily activities and chores that we neglect our relationship with God who can guide us how to have a better lifestyle, as a consequence we mess things up.

When you’re busy busy busy and tired of doing things over and over then you get less Margin in your life and most probably you are stressed out and your relationships are suffering!

Do you wanted to increase your Life Margin and enjoy life more? Jesus has something to tell you today: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest…learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11: 28, 29)

If you wanted to learn more about LIFE’S MARGIN it is the topic of our church family’s message series every Sunday!  This coming Sunday (January 24) we will learn “SCHEDULING MARGIN.” How to schedule to have Margin? I am inviting you to visit us, leave a comment below so that I can communicate with you!

The Major Oil Companies in the Philippines

I find this a very intriguing issue and scenario.  Oil price is a hot item in the news because it controls many aspects of our human lives including our regular jobs.  It affects our travel fare and the transfer and prices of our basic necessities. It affects peso’s purchasing power which directly alters the lives of employees, SME owners or entrepreneurs and OFW dependents.  That is most of us!

The oil firms  and other industries like that of transport, seem like gods here because business industries and common people are dependent on what they dictate. They seemed to even manipulate the government, one particular incident is creating the tension between DOE and NEDA. Even their supposedly public documents cannot be touched, because their monopoly might be exposed.  With the transport industry, they paralyzes the access to travel of many commuters going to work and going back home.  Until a natural disaster like Ondoy came, which made the Executive Branch of our government acted to control the oil price (for whatever reason it may have).

Jeepney is the most common form of transport in the Philippines

This weekend Petron became willing to open it’s Financial Statement!

Let me share some of my observations:

1.  Any company and industry (let me include the government agencies) or individual will protect it’s personal interest!

2.  It/they will do everything to preserve it and eliminate the problems of income impediment.  They will use any means to do it: legal way,  bargaining, falsification and harassment.  They won’t even care how others will be affected.

3.  Pag-napilay saka lang bibigay!

How about you? In your work places and in your businesses, whatever position you have, whether you are the owner, an officer, manager, supervisor, an employee in the rank and file, regular or contractual. Do you only preserve your personal interest? Don’t you care for what your boss, the people below you, your clients and colleagues go through as long as you get what you want?

Are you still waiting for the time when your personal preoccupation is exposed to your shame?  Or until the time you lose everything you are trying to gain?

Let us all be reminded that good character, worth keeping personal and business relationship and leaving behind an honorable lasting legacy is more important than personal gain only!

The good Old Book says, ‘God will judge man’s secrets’ and ‘For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.’

Another passage says, ‘A man reaps what he sows.’

*Bible references: the first line is from Romans 2: 16, the second line is from Matthew 12: 37 and the last line is from Galatians 6: 7.

Consider one passage coming from the Bible, that says “…(we) must work, doing something useful with our own hands, so that we may have something to share with those in need.” [Ephesians 4: 28]  That is being generous!

GENEROSITY is a very good virtue!  Yet, if we do not have something to share we cannot practice it! I don’t mean, though, that those with less resources should not be generous. But let me ask you this question…who gave much during & after the Ondoy tragedy? They were the ones with greater resources!

Our jobs provide our means for living & if we know how to manage those, it will make all the possibilities to be generous with people who are much more in need than us.

From the resources we get from our jobs God wanted us to be generous!