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Monday, January 23, 2012

Uncomfortable with Jesus


Having Jesus around Jerusalem was the most uncomfortable thing that happened to the lives both of the Pharisees and the common people. Jesus’ coming was like a stone thrown into a still pound, a loud trumpet in a quiet afternoon or a wayward entering the President’s banquet. He disturbed the status quo – people were shocked, amazed and angry everywhere. A man born blind could now see. A woman bleeding for many years is now healed. Water is turned into wine. Evil spirits entered pigs’ bodies -throwing them off a cliff. A dead man is brought to life.  If that wasn’t enough – He forgave man’s sin and said that He and the father are one.

The Jews only had two options – to believe in Him completely or to get rid of Him – but with everything He had already done, they couldn’t simply brush it off.

So despite everything good Jesus did – He was killed - because it was uncomfortable having him around. After all, “if they allowed him to go on like that, soon everyone would believe in him. Then the Roman army would come and destroy both their temple and their nation.” (John 11:48) Apparently, man’s nature to preserve himself is evident in this reason. They could not see the work of God because they are blinded by worldly matters.

Self-preservation in this context was the attempt of man to get rid of what he deemed a challenge to his comfortable state.

“WE WERE FINE WITHOUT JESUS. AND WE WILL BE BETTER OFF WITHOUT HIM SO LET’S JUST GET RID OFF HIM ONCE AND FOR ALL.”

Even those who experienced Jesus’ love and compassion – those who witnessed the five loaves and two fish multiplied to feed them five thousand, those who drank the wine that Jesus made from water, those whose husbands, wives, children experienced healing – were all helpless in trying to stop the Pharisees.

In unison, they cried, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Got rid of him once and for all.

Little did the Jews know that at Jesus’ expense, He was using their self-preservation for their ultimate good. God chose from the very beginning to redeem the fallen mankind at the expense of Himself. He looked past their spits, their whips, their crowning him with thorns and their nailing him on the cross so that He could ultimately save them. While He was suffering, He had these people in mind – and the rest of us today. The cross is a reminder of that pursuit – the weight Jesus chose to carry, the instrument of His death so that He could save the lives of those who plotted it.

We are often blind to our weaknesses and we are finite beings who make mistakes. We are often like the Jews who were blind to what Jesus was trying to do. But every turn of events in our lives – be it a joyful, a sad, a painful one is God’s way of pursuing us - of making us know Him as He really is. He can turn everything around and make us a new person. What he did around 2000 years ago should impact our lives today. We can either reject Him or accept Him completely – but we can never ignore Him.

If we accept Him into our lives as Savior and Lord – yes our lives will never be the same – he can make us stop our vices and addictions, he can relocate us, will break our relationships, take away our jobs but we will experience a new one that will be far beyond our wildest imagination. If we reject or ignore Him, however, He will also reject and ignore us when judgment day comes.

If you want to accept Jesus into your life, pray this simple prayer of faith (it’s not the prayer that saves you; it is your faith – the prayer is just a guide)

“Dear Lord Jesus, I need you. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and I receive you as my Savior and Lord. Thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person that you want me to be.”
Amen

Friday, January 20, 2012

Going for the Less Wild Lovers


At some point in our lives, we find ourselves simply tired of being a Christian. We drag ourselves to church, refuse to talk about God and do not allow scripture to meddle in our lives. However, the thought of completely losing religion seems scary so we let God stay at the porch - near enough for emergencies but far enough for convenience. He has now become a mere Bible character, a painting on the wall or just a statue at the altar. 

The Jesus we have accepted into our lives some time ago is a stranger once again. But who could blame us? Life with Jesus is an adventure - a wild one. He does not allow that we are simply kept warm in our homes for a long time and merely get by. He takes us to wild oceans - storms and all, to rain forests and rocky mountains. We'll get wet in the rain, stumble on slippery roads, fall in pits - but for sure, He is in his sneakers walking with us - laughing with us at our slips, carrying our load when we're exhausted, letting down a rope so we could climb up from a pit - at times, he will make us stop and simply sit with him to marvel at the sunset or look at the fog or listen to the birds sing.

This is not the kind of life many people want, though. They prefer less wild lovers - those who appear stable and less surprising, those who seem to love too much, they won't ever cause pain, those who abhor changes specially those that shake the heart to the core. They hate adventure - they prefer safety. They prefer comfort. They hate intimacy.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

What God Truly Desires


Living in the Philippines that is said to be “the only Christian nation in Asia”, Filipinos can talk freely about Christ anytime, anywhere. In fact, 80 % would say that they have a firm faith in God and believe that He is a big help in their lives. We say that He is our guiding light, say prayers more than once every day: morning, before going to bed and even before taking a shower and in malls at 12 and 3 PM. We celebrate his birth not just for a day but for more than 5 days at the end of the year. We mourn over his death and would even walk miles contemplating it. Some even copy the very suffering of Christ and would have themselves crucified. We loathe atheists and we think highly of the religious. We go to Sunday masses and services and we give tithes and offerings.
But we spend the rest of our days and nights worried and restless. Feeling the great need to protect ourselves, we compromise. We don’t pay our taxes. We give false declarations about our incomes, our expenses. Feeling taken advantage of, we say hurtful words to each other and about each other. We curse. We lie. We refuse to love. We don’t mirror the very decrees our “faith” advocates.
When asked about our principles in life, we come up with postmodern ideas: you deserve to be happy; life is all about you; you owe it to yourself. You. You. You. We are more than confused about the way life should be. We claim to be Christians but our hearts are far from Christ. We believe in God but we live as though He doesn’t exist.
Most of all, our religious life is purely religious – just a compartment in life – a supplementary to make us feel right about ourselves,  giving us a feeling that we are not completely doomed. We play our game and we keep God on the bleachers – sitting there watching, not as a coach we allow to direct, teach, train and celebrate our victories with us. We pray that He will guide our marriage, that He will give us the “man” or “woman” who has knocked us off our feet – but we don’t listen when He tells us to let go, or when He tells us how to make things better.
We want the best of what we think He could give but we are not ready and willing to give our hearts to Him, to really know Him – to listen, to learn and to surrender. We want the best of life – but we have not turned to the only one who could give it. We want just a portion of God, not all of Him. We want to keep Him in our home but we are busy with other things. We think that we have it all made up by our piety and the things we do for Him. The truth is, God does not need us. He will still be God without our tithes, our worship, our fasting, our masses and services. What He desires more is our hearts – a child-like attitude in approaching Him, a willingness to give it all up in exchange for a life that He will bless and use to bless others. With this kind of life, God would often tip us off our comfort boats, our security blankets and our little comfy world. He would break us – only to make us whole. He would make us cry – only to comfort us with His Spirit. Then we end up satisfied, peaceful and joyful – not because we have everything or everything is going well – but simply because He is there. His presence would be enough. It would not be a life free from pain or the other nasty things, but one spent knowing the almighty God who will just keep blowing our mind away. We would be so busy knowing Him, loving Him and being loved in return that everything else would become so small and easy to handle.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

On Teaching


As a new teacher, the first I noticed about my students  were the areas that needed improvement, and started thinking of strategies to make them learn and stop misbehaving. Later, I started knowing more about them, their family background: that they long for their father who had to be a away from home to give them a good life, how they get scared when their parents fight and throw things at each other. I learned that one had had been terribly scolded by a teacher when she was small so that she hated school since then and is now struggling to graduate. When you start discovering their stories, you stand back with your hands more relaxed, letting go of the bag of tricks you have in mind to make them meet your expectations. You now divert your anger with them for misbheaving to their teachers who “misbehaved” by humiliating them and made them stop believing in themselves. To try to make kids fit in the standards of society is just one thing about education – but having an eye towards the best persons they could possibly is everything about it, for there is no single prototype of greatness that we could mold them in. Teachers after all are not police officers – they are educators. We must therefore meet them where they are – family problems, traumas, fears, hesitations, tantrums and all. We could make our students pick up the pieces of paper on the floor, arrange the chairs, erase the writings on the board, greet teachers when they see them but if we have failed to see them where their heart is (that is perhaps dying for attention and acceptance), and missed to make them realize their potential and help them work through their weaknesses, then for the long term, we have failed as teachers.