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Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Touching God's Heart

There are some things that you think you won't be missing every day in your life. You wake up everyday, have breakfast, take a bath, go to work, check your emails, be pressured by your boss, go to the gym and train, go back home and sleep. On weekends, it's either you fill out with endless hanging out in the malls with friends and squeeze a little of your time to go to church. Being a yuppie, life has been like this for me for the past months. I seem to love and (fear a little) everything about life, when things are all what they seem, when things go as they should be. But what could be missing? Of course I haven't forgotten about God, I read my Bible everyday, I read my daily devotions, I pray and confess my sins.

But I was sitting there inside Ninoy Aquino Stadium, with the Hillsong United Concert ticket in my hand and in a few minutes later, true worshippers will worship God in spirit and in truth. As I sat there, I recalled last year when I was at Reuben Morgan's Concert God has literally turned my life around. It was there God revealed His purpose in my life but how about now? When I have my own job, sure God's dream for me is there but I felt somehow some things has been clouding my heart. I felt off-centered. True, I love God- I'm involved in God's ministry but somehow I felt out of touch. I felt I have lost my center. I desperately need to touch the heart of God and that God would touch mine. I'm not sure if I'm worthy to come into His presence tonight with worries in my head - like my job, or the sins that were to shameful to admit. But I have to and I want to - to come boldly into His presence, this all or nothing. I have nothing to hide, I'll discard all my sophistication and I'm gonna sing, dance and jump before His presence like it's just between me and Him.

Everything was in a blur as the band came out. I felt so ready and the trailer before us flashed, "Now is the time when true worshippers will worship God in spirit and in truth". People were howling, screaming and jumping as the music played and the band played the songs. God was slowly removing the layers of pretense off my heart. It's hard to sing and to take into your soul what you're singing when you felt so far away from God. I sighed in frustration, God I can't feel you. Why is it like that? But when I stopped doing all my attempts to manufacture for God's presence by signing out loud, jumping, and just standing there being silent and prayed a simple sincere prayer, I felt God coming to me and I felt my Spirit rising as I slowly come to His invitation to lavish His presence. We cannot manufacture God's presence by setting up an atmosphere of worship. He comes when our hearts are set before Him.

Pastor Christian came up the stage and gave a short exhortation. He was telling us not to forget the dream God has planted into your heart. If you haven't got a dream then start dreaming. Live God's dream everywhere you are - in your church, with your friends, in your workplace. Live out God's dream for and just do it! How could I forget what God has planted in me? How suddenly at this current situation in my life, they seem so far away? What has gone wrong I thought? The passion has gone and I've been neglecting my ministry in order to pursue some "new" passions. I realized I have prioritized other things more than I prioritize things that matters to God. I've made mistakes and wrong decisions. I rededicated my dream to God and just like a snap! God's heart seemed to be reconciled to my heart and I was singing my heart loud, shouting out loud God's goodness and praying for people. This is wonderful, I wished that this night would never end.

When the concert was over, my friends and I were still so excited of what has transpired. We talked about what God has revealed to us that night and we can't stop talking about it while we were going home. The message is still clear, imprinted into us, just like what the song "Tell the World" says,

"Don't wanna be here and shout your praise and walk away and forget Your name."

We ought to be out of the world telling everyone of what God has done in each of our lives.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Didn't Christ Dined with Sinners?

Just recently, I met my Dad who just arrived from Davao in Holiday Inn in Ortigas. After our small talk I decided to bring my Dad to church in a certain church inside Robinson's Galleria which is just a few steps away.

When we arrived there, we were met by a swarm of churchgoers who can't find seats. I was impressed. The sound was great, they have worship leaders and pastors who looked like celebrities. What a great motivation indeed to go to church if you see girls and guys who are good to look at every Sunday. When the sermon came, all was quite going well. It was about Faith and the account was about when Isaiah gave his blessing to Jacob instead of Esau. The pastor was funny, an eloquent speaker himself. But for one thing, it was his behavior as he shared this side joke before the crowd. We all know that Jacob was quite the opposite of Esau. Esau was hairy, a very physical man who enjoyed hunting and the outdoors while Jacob was smooth and fair-skinned, who tended the sheep and stayed near home.

So this pastor made this stupid joke about men who were fair-skinned and he was relating to men nowadays who were effeminate, quite vain about themselves, in short men who are "gay". People were laughing but in one corner I saw this guy. He was wearing pink and by the looks of him it's obvious that he is gay. His face was a picture of hurt. He was angry and I saw him clenching his fist. I stopped myself from my urge to laugh and felt Christ speaking to me. I saw him and felt his agony, as people in the audience laugh in their ignorance. If I were that man, I wouldn't be going to this church.

I'm not judging or anything about a church like this or churches in general these days. As I have observed, churches nowadays don't attend to the brokenness of its members. Most churches nowadays are more focused on evangelism on making thousands and thousands of members eventually making them mega churches. It's not bad actually but sadly most churches are concerned maintaining their status quo. They wanted to be the church of the "elite". They wanted to project an image of a happy church, with all of its members happy and smiling and faithfully appear to obey God's word. It's either they want to hide the reality that its members are broken - they ingore it, they shy away from it or just laugh their way to it just as this pastor is making this sickening joke? They don't offer help, they condemn. What a hypocrisy!

Didn't Christ dined with the sinners? Didn't he associate himself with the tax collectors? Didin't he saved Mary Magdalene, the prostitute? Didn't he gave the living water the adulteress woman of Samaria badly need? Didn't he choose Peter who was fickle-hearted? or Judas whom He know would betray him? Our churches become the modern-day synagogues; with their pastors, the modern day Pharisees. Is that what Christ want his church his to be? With people who claim to be clean and spotless? Think again, the church should exist to welcome sinners. To provide help to those who are needy, to be a safe place to anyone who needs refuge and most of all to transform the lives of the people to be Christ-like, not tolerating the sin but lovingly care for the sinner.

The Calling of Matthew (Matthew 9:9-17)

9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

12 On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'[a] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Spending All Soul's Day

I was in the middle of the stage and I felt I was Michael W. Smith. The band echoed making a crescendo of the first song of Michael's "Worship" album. I felt my mouth which I know would be saying, "Hello Louisville, Kentucky!" instead, "Hello, Oranbo, Pasig!"

What!?

Where the hell was I? Oh, yes, on my bed? Dreaming or maybe daydreaming perhaps. I woke up and felt my whole body ache from doing boxing the night before. That was good though! Anyway, I did my usual thing: have my quiet time, have breakfast while watching Hillsong, check my e-mail and browse my bookmarked sites. By 1 o' clock I'm going to meet my friend Josh, to watch "The Prestige".

When I finished my errands, I answered my GT assignment and continued my reading on "Angels and Demons"... that writer, Dan Brown is really great. Only those who believe what he says are the ,fools. I got at SM Mega by 1. Just in time, Josh texted me and we met and have lunch before watching the movie. By quarter to 2, we were inside the cinema.

The movie was really good... all these pointless quest for power just brings you death and your destruction - that was all the movie wants to convey in a nutshell. After that Josh asked me to hang out in his "crib" but I declined feeling quite tired and wanted to go home. So we decided to go to Starbucks and drink coffee and talked about stuff like life, career, women, etc... I was supposed to go home but I was tempted to shop so I bought myself a set of my corporate attire... yes. I still waited for an hour to have my slacks altered so I went to Powerbooks and listened to "Bossa" and have dinner. After that I, got my slacks, went home and wrote this.

Life can be quite ordinary sometimes and it's good to appreciate the ordinary.