He Never Left

As I was preparing my message on a section of predestination, I learned and realized further how many people always look down on themselves and thought that God does not love them anymore and has left them to rot because they have sinned against God; they were unworthy especially of those habitual sins.

The truth is God has never left us.  Sometimes, I would hear people were surprise how God response to them or to there prayer.  Sometimes, I would hear they felt they are very close to God because of what just has happened.  Whether good or bad things happen in our life - God actually never left.  It was our emotion and our mind that dictates that God has left.  It is the work of Satan to use our mind to condemn ourselves.  So, we really need to fill our mind with spiritual things especially those who has earphones always plug in their ears, at times add to your music library Christian songs or even the audio bible, it will help a lot for our minds to focus on spiritual things.

Remember, whatever our mind or our heart dictates - God never left us; it was his promise, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

Hardin ni Maria

It was around ten years ago, I was able to go to this place in Tagaytay, called Hardin ni Maria.  The pastors of YWC had a retreat there and I was just a seminary student.  It was a very very beautiful private rest house.  It was full of beautiful flowers and plants around the 2 hectare land.   There was a house made out of wood at the middle of the garden.  It was guarded by large dogs at night.   I have wonderful memories, because just sitting along the porch give you a sense of peace within as you enjoy the beauty of God's creation and feel the cool breeze of Tagaytay.  I love the sound of the bamboo leaves singing its song as the the wind passes by.

Today, we had our overnight stay in this place once again.  The place was very much improve it has now an extended house where a big kitchen and dinning area was build.  It also has a recreation room upstairs.  Beside it has a big roofed area for activities.  The north side of the house near the gate has a waiting shed.  All of these architecture added beauty to its place.  Beside the beautiful garden that has been well maintained, these areas were actually added attraction for your extended relaxation.

I was able to feel so close to God, read a book, pray and meditate.  It was really a refreshing time for all of us.  Sayang, we only had an overnight stay because all of us have appointments the following day.  I was able to read at least 70 pages of my book and enjoyed a good night rest.  We also have fun and good fellowship among the pastors.

Sadly, I can only describe the place since I forgot to bring my camera.  I was really prepared to bring my camera for those lovely flowers in the garden that has been stuck in my mind for the last 10 years.  And because I was in a hurry to leave the office I left my camera.  Maybe the place is best in my mind and heart for it is well kept safe.

I wonder when I can have a retirement place like that... it really felt very close to God.

Not Big Enough

I was able to share with some of my mentees about my recent struggles in life.  Actually, we all agree that I have achieved so much in my life that recent new things do not really challenge me anymore.  It seems my life lacks something that has caused my loss in my direction in life.

Then, one of them told me that my recent plans are not big enough for a challenge.  I do develop new ministries but they are more just to help improve our present ministry but does not challenge me because I am much aware what needs to be done.  There seems to be less reliance on God in doing these stuffs.  Though I do rely on God much in everything I do but it seems he is right, because God has been blessing my ministries so much that I need to move to another level of glorifying God as I plan out for new ministry.  I need to do something bigger and more important in expanding the kingdom of God.

As we were discussing this, it suddenly dawned on me, some years back, we have a visiting pastor from another country who spoke in our revival meeting.  All of a sudden, he pulled me by the side and told me strange things.  We have been introduced but we were really not well acquainted.  He said to me, listen carefully, I have an important message for you. God has revealed to me some things God wanted you to do.  After listening intently, we prayed together and as we pray he told me a word came to him and that was "transformation." Then, we ended our conversation.  Actually, what we discussed has been impressed in my by God some years ago, it seems it was a confirmation coming from God through this pastor.  But I was so afraid to do it, because that would be entering a new playing field where I am not familiar with, which I felt I was not really ready.  It demands complete reliance on God.

It seems this is the new thing God wanted me to do... it will definitely rip all of my comfort zones and a real big challenge in my life.  Should I go for it now, since God has spoken and this loss of direction stage in my life seems to be pointing to such direction?  My faith in God has been very big, but this new challenge demands ten times the faith I have today.  It is really a big leap of faith.

Dear Lord, if you really wanted me to do such ministry, please give me the strength and courage to put my trust in you and fulfill the plan you have sketched for me, even before the world began.  In Jesus name... Amen.

I Do Not Know What to Write

It has been a very busy day, and as I calm down to reflect on my day, I really do not know what I want, I do not know what I hate, I do not know what I love, and I do not even know what I want to write.

It seems my life is back to uncertainty.  I do believe my performance at work has not deteriorate nor I have been unproductive but I am not motivated to what I have been doing lately.  Tonight, I even discovered that for the past three months though I have been preparing messages to preach, I have also wasted so much stupid time with my Neopet just to keep myself busy.  I am determined to remove this site out of my bookmark.  Maybe I really do not know what lies ahead of me and I have entered another moment of uncertainty.

Sometimes, it is really difficult to be stupid, it is difficult to be dumb, it is difficult to be foolish, but it is also difficult to be great, it is difficult to be good and so difficult to be blessed.  It is indeed hard to please ourselves.

Am I loss?  Oh, God, please do tell me what to do next... I am lost...

A Second Look at the Inner Healing Framework

Pointers of Second Diagram

1. Our life is our journey on earth.

2. The first cross is when we accepted Jesus to be our personal Lord and Savior.  While the last cross is our physical death here on earth.

3. Before we were sinners, lost, and sick.  But through Christ I am now free from the bondage of sin and death by choice, and by the continuing transformation power of Christ in me.  Healing Work.

4. The Holy Spirit is our Counselor, Searcher, Helper, Comforter, Brooding us, etc.

5. The heart is the love of God that covers us in our journey here on earth with Christ as its center of reconciliation.

6. We are focus towards the direction on continuing to know God, who is faithful, compassionate, almighty, loving, forgiving, hospitable etc...

7. The small “x” are the different challenges and trails we face in life where God continue to help us

get through.  Places of death - wherever we experience death.  DEFINITION OF DEATH - all loss, sadness, burden, awareness, choice and experience of sin.  As we move through these challenges, we turn to Christ in each of these and we come to know more about our God and his desire to heal.  We experience healing in the places of  death.  We develop a right concept of God.  Death and fear of death loses its sting.  

8. As the experience of grace builds us, we continue to know God more and because of this even though we experience of death, sadness, loss, we fear less; death has less and less power.  While our concept and understanding of God widens which leads us to freedom until we face our physical death.  And we move to being with God.

9. The journey of life is a continuous development of our spirituality which involves our continuing broader knowledge about God.  This helps us overcome more on our challenges in life as we acknowledge God’s presence in our journey.  Then, we become more and more Christlike.

10. Our life should not focus on separating each situation as distinct and separate but as if it is on the same journey in order to give us life abundant and to build on our knowledge about God.  Then God can grow his kingdom (the kingdom of heaven come to earth through Jesus).  larger and larger in us and through us.  If we do not do this, we always go back to the cross and failing to develop and better understanding of who our God is.

The Power of Strengthened Faith

Today, is the first day for our lay leaders' "Inner Healing Seminar."  It has been raining hard all morning and the pastors have been praying for God to intervene.  Many places are very much flooded.  We were foreseeing that the seminar will have difficulty in gathering attendance since it will be difficult to come to church with such situation.

By God's grace; He answered our prayers.  The typhoon has left and the rain suddenly stopped in the afternoon.  The roads were cleared up and we even overshoot our target of attendance.  There were more than 100 people who attended the Inner Healing Seminar.  I also saw so much church leaders attending this seminar.  The Power of Faith is at work among us in this spirituality session as God answers our prayers, so as our faith in Him is strengthened.

We now just need to pray that these people who attended that they would be able to chew on what has been discussed.  It really needed deep reflection and thinking in order to understand the process of Inner Healing.

Since God has called so many people to attend, I believe that God is going to do it again - to send revival to His church - in UECP.

Inner Healing: A Spiritual Formation

We have invited Mrs. Mary Lynn Dickau for an Inner Healing Seminar for UECP.  We have separate sessions for Pastors in the morning that runs for three mornings, while the lay leaders for two nights.  Afterwards, the pastors would have one on one session with her and an overnight prayer retreat in Tagaytay.

The difference between our session with the lay leaders was only the pastors are being prepared to equipped on how to really pray for healing as we minister to the people in the church and praying for the healing of the church as a whole.

I was impressed with the insights brought forth by the framework which was presented to us this morning.  Though I have preached on such topic on sanctification.  The insights were far beyond my knowledge of explanation.  I was able to understand better the doctrine of sanctification.

Inner Healing was actually about our journey with God towards Him.  Most of the time we have a wrong concept with God which causes hurt, frustration, anger and revenge.  We are hurt in our journey here on earth by different external forces.  We are healed when we accepted Jesus as our personal saviour but the process of healing is an ongoing process.

Death is suppose to include sadness, fear, and other negative elements that causes emotional and spiritual drought in a Christian's life.  We face such challenges everyday that we treat each situation as a stand alone item.  Whenever, we are done with such challenge in life, it becomes a close book.   But actually this is a wrong concept.  We should build on our victories so that we death becomes smaller because Jesus has overcome death, and holy living should get bigger as our experiences of grace from God multiplies.

We are continually walking out of this darkened world.  As we walk towards the light, our surrounding gets brighter.  In every stage of this walk, when we are drawn to God or our knowledge and experience of God increases, our surrounding gets even brighter out of the darkness of this world.

 Inner healing involves our spirituality, emotions and physical healing.  So that as we journey life here on earth, we get to know God more and be drawn closer to our Creator until the time comes.  It is walking not towards death but home.

Zoobic Safari Experience

I was invited to join a group of young people to Subic's Zoobic Safari.  It was a long drive going there and a long drive coming back to Manila.  The main highlight was really about the tigers.  Nothing special actually.  I brought my camera along but has less than 25 shots for 6 hours.

I really felt the show they had in the first part of the tour was a little over.  It seems they are cruel to those animals performing to entertain the public.  I did not clap my hands because I notice whenever the monkey did not follow the trainer, the trainer would pull the cord around its neck to force it to follow.  I think this is animal cruelty.

I think there is no suitable zoo park here in our country though I have not gone to all.  My next target is the zoo in Vigan, hope that place, animals are well kept and are in suitable cages.  I think the government should spend a good place for this kinds of parts for the Filipino kids education on live animals and proper care for such living things.

 I think Taronga Zoo, was the best zoo I have visited but this is located in Sydney.  Also for the underground sea experience, the one in Sydney was also well maintained.  Lastly, the Jurong Bird Park in Singapore are also a nice place to look at thousands of species of birds and they are well kept and maintained.

Preaching in NMEC Prayer Meeting

It was really a blessing as I was invited by Jean chi to preach in their English Prayer Meeting tonight.  I was so happy because I saw a lot of good old friends whom I have not have worship with for the past eight years.

The prayer meeting was well attended, I think this has always been the strength of Rev. Huang's leadership.  The whole atmosphere was really warmth and loving... I think that is the best description I could think of.

I hope and pray that the exchanges of fellowship between the two churches can continue to rekindle old friendships and partnership for the glory of God.  I think it is really time to move on and shake hands and bless one another and be reconciled as a church.

I know that people continue to have strong acquaintances with one another through these years but I pray and hope that such strong acquaintances will not only be on the individual level but on a church level.

 God is good - all the time.

Sermon Preparation Burnout

If you think making a sermon is easy... guess again.  I have been writing my sermons for the past months and it seems I am really exhausted preparing them.  I am almost out of brain juice but I still need to get ready for Sunday's sermon.

Sermon preparation starts with meditating on the Word of God for weeks trying to seek God's message for the congregation.  Afterwards it involves writing it down, identifying the central proposition, title and outline.  You have to explain the biblical context and try to find the theological context and the relevance to your audience.  And you need to form the application with added illustration for more clarify and clear expectation from the listeners.  It needs rewriting and rewriting.  And you cannot just seat down and write and write because in each paragraph you write, you need time for reflection for it to sink in completely to you.   You cannot really just preach and preach, it needs relevance and connection with your personal transformation.

Then, you still need to practice how it should be delivered depending on the age group of your audience.  If you are speaking to a Chinese congregation, you still need to translate it to Chinese.  My world lately seems to evolve only in message preparation.  And it seems, I am going rounds, doing one sermon after the other just to keep up with my scheduled preaching.

But praise God for allowing me to preach His word to His people.  Since this is my call to do so and I really need to spend more time with Him to continually gain insights from His Word.  I enjoy spending time with God, but it seems my life has been enclose to this activity only lately that makes my life a little less exciting.  It seems I needed some recreation to have a fresh outlook for my messages..

MUSAIC by Windsong

I was so blessed by the message of Pastor Robbie Casas when he spoke about Biblical Management of Worship Ministry.  It was the only  message that caught my attention today.  I am not saying the rest of the messages were not helpful but it seems I have been teaching those stuffs in church for years already.

Though what Pastor Casas shared were nothing new to me, but he really spoke with credibility and integrity.  It seems the Holy Spirit was shouting within me.  I was reminded of my personal worship with God and my true role as a pastor in managing worship.  I really felt that I have not done so much for my church worship.  There was no seriousness in our worship on Sundays.  So many people who takes part in our worship does not really prepare themselves seriously especially one their walk with God.  I think even our theology in worship is somewhat hay-wired... The pastoring role is really missing, and sadly many of us were not really lifelong learners were we wanted to take initiative to learn new stuffs for the betterment of our ministry.

So, I decided to invite him to speak to our church leadership especially those who are involve in our worship service.  We have finalized the schedule and will announce it soon.  I hope he could help reshape our worship in church and really help us develop true worship that honors, glorifies and pleases God.

Reclassifying Files

Tuesday and Wednesday has been two long days for me as I start to reclassify my remaining 30% of computer documents.  It was not really easy, after two long days, I am still around 10% short since I discovered that many of my MS Publisher documents cannot be read by Mac, I have to shift each one to PDF files.

I am still adjusting to my new MAC, after these I have to start learning how to really use pages, keynote and numbers.  It seems not that easy changing systems but since it was already an investment, might as well go for it and no turning back.

My consolation from these reclassifying besides the backaches, I was able to really throw away lots of junk from my computer files and really able to reclassify my documents for easy access.  I really still wonder how can all of my files be able to fit in my limited macbook hard drive space.  Anyway, we'll find out soon hehehe...

Though I have reclassified so many files already, I believe I still need to throw away some more stuffs from my files.  I better look for time to do it...

Organizing stuffs make things easier to find in a long run... but reclassifying sure is a long run itself.

Throwing Away Stuffs

I planned to go to the office this morning but the heavy rain has really prevented me from leaving home.  And I really need a break after doing the sermon for St. Stephen's and my grandmother's wake.  It was not really easy and I was really exhausted since I also got fever during that week.

It has been my personal custom to clean my two rooms (bedroom and study room).  Since, I wanted to relax and do something different, I opted to bulldozer some stuffs.  For years, many times December, I would practically go through my stuffs and throw things away to de-clog my rooms with so many stuffs.  I think it was my Chinese instincts of wanting to keep and pile up things at home is always in me.  So for five years now, after collecting usually by December, I have this moments of de-clogging my rooms by getting a sack and start to put unwanted things there and throwing them away.

We practically have so many things at home that we do not need but do not know where to put them.  And our home does not look like homes but warehouses.  The best way is to de-clog and throw stuffs away.  I do not worry throwing away new things, I believe those who need it most, will be able to get them from the junk.

Some people might criticize me for doing this but honestly, I only give those stuffs away that I really do not need.  I do not throw all things away.  It can be a new notebook or a pen or a picture frame... But I am sure those who are in need would be able to get it from the trash.  Why not give it to our less fortunate employees at church?  Well, I do give them stuffs that are better than those I throw away.  Some kids out there are really in need are picking up garbage.  I always remember the prayer of Ms. Beltran when the faculty is having raffles in school.  She would ask God that the one who need it most would get the best price and everyone would agree that the winner was really the person who is in real need.

Breaking December tradition, I was able to gather up one sack for disposal.  I was also able to clean up some files at home as well as reclassify some books.

I started to de-clog because there was one time, I really wanted to get married, and after surveying our house and my room, it can't really fit another person with all of my personal garbage.  That was the time I made my personal resolution to de-clog rooms.  My first time to do this, I was able to throw away five sacks of stuffs.  And I was happy, that anytime my lifetime partner would pop in, she has plenty of space to put her stuff in....hehehe