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Surrender
June 25, 2011 
Surrender
All that I am is Yours
All that I have is Yours
I give You my heart and soul
Lord I’m Yours
Lord every day is Yours
Lord every breath is Yours
Giving my life to You
Lord I’m Yours
You alone are worthy of all praise
You alone are worthy of all praise
I surrender all to You
I surrender all to You
I am nothing without You
Jesus Christ take my life
It’s all for You
You’re worthy of all praise
You’re worthy of all praise, Jesus
This is the hardest part.. to surrender everything. When we surrender, we no longer think of the past, the present and the future. We put our whole trust in the Magnificent One who is always able. We yield to His will and commandments. We say NO to our own desires and say YES to HIS every command. We give up unChirst-like habits, motives and relationships. We allow ourselves to be pruned, to be tested in fire and furnace, to be molded in every possible way so at the end of the day, we will be able to magnifiy His love, His power and and glory. To live the character Jesus has and to reach out and save lives for Him, that’s the mission. This is surrender. You no longer call the shots, Jesus does.
Hillsong United Live in Manila: The Aftermath
June 3, 2011
I woke up this morning with Hillsong United’s Aftermath still stuck in my head. Last night was a night of praise and worship with thousands of Filipinos jumping and shouting their hearts out for God. The concert started at around 8 pm with “Go” as the opening song while it ended at around 11 pm with “One way” as the finale.
It was heartwarming to see a crowd of people lifting up their hands and crying their hearts out in worship. “I’ll tell you the truth, this thing, what we’re doing, the jumping and singing is not for us, not for ourselves but for Jesus. So let’s put Him at the center right now.”, Joel Houston reminded the crowd before the third song. And so the crowd went wild for God with all the singing and dancing and shouting and jumping around. What struck me most is the altar call at the middle of the performance. It reminded me of what Ptr. Steve retweeted last week, quoting a Pastor in the Middle East he said “People serve and serve and serve God but why can’t they preach the gospel?” Serving God through music doesn’t start and end with the song writing, performances and tours. It is all about reaching to the lost and leading them to Jesus. I have read an article where Joel Houston tells in an interview that the vision of United hasn’t change in years. To quote, “Our heart in the early days was to write songs for our youth ministry to connect our friends who didn’t know Jesus and friends who did, and do it in our own way - breaking the rules, doing it in a way that seemed right. That hasn’t changed”. True enough Hillsong United has reached out to a lot of people, especially to unbelievers, teaching them about God’s unconditional love through the lyrics of theirs songs. The band (or the church ) encouraged the crowd especially those who accepted Christ during the altar call to do three things. First is to tell to a friend or anyone that he has made that decision. Second is to buy a bible and read it. Lastly to attend church and not just to attend but BE the church. The exhortations during the night led us in worship and people couldn’t help but shout unto God with a voice of triumph.
Here’s the lyrics of the song Aftermath:
Aftermath (Hillsong United)
[Verse 1:]
The skies lay low where You are
On the earth You rest Your feet
Yet the hands that cradle the stars
Are the hands that bled for me
[Chorus 1:]
In a moment of glorious surrender
You were broken for all the world to see
Lifted out of the ashes
I am found in the aftermath
[Verse 2:]
Freedom found in Your scars
In Your grace my life redeemed
For You chose to take the sinner’s crown
As You placed Your crown on me
[Chorus 2:]
In that moment of glorious surrender
Was the moment You broke the chains in me
Lifted out of the ashes
I am found in the aftermath
And in that moment You opened up the heavens
To the broken the beggar and the thief
Lifted out of the wreckage
I find hope in the aftermath
[Bridge:]
And I know that You’re with me
Yes I know that You’re with me here
And I know Your love will light the way
[Chorus 3:]
Now all I have I count it all as loss
But to know You and to carry the cross
Knowing I’m found
In the light of the aftermath
When I don’t understand GOD
May 29, 2011God’s plans are always meant to prosper us and not to harm us, Jeremiah tells us but when things get out of control and you start praying and you get nothing, would you still proclaim this truth and keep pressing on? Or will you wrestle with God with your questions and demand for answers?
The famous philosopher said, “I think therefore I am”, which suggests that it is integral for a human being to philosophize, and throw questions about anything. These questions are those that demand reason and the answers always require justification . Questions like, the Philippines is a Christian country yet why are we on the list of the most corrupt countries in Asia? Why, of all people, must academicians die because of impunity or worse, stupid car accidents? Why do the righteous people suffer injustice while the greedy and hypocrites live in comfort? Why do our province need to experience a dozen of typhoons a year while others barely experience one? Why do Christians get cancer while the non-believers burn out their lungs and abuse their livers and yet stay healthy? Why did she get the promotion while I was the one who worked hard for it? Why did the Iconic Boys got into the finals of the America’s Best Dance Crew Season 6? These questions no matter how deep or shallow are always thrown at the Omniscient one and always demand explanation. The thing is, more often than not these questions are not answered and if answered, we don’t get what we expected.
Habakkuk had his share of this feeling of anxiety and doubt that he even questioned God on His plans for the nation. In Habakkuk 1: 2-3, Habakkuk was asking God for His timetable
How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.
Habakkuk’s cry was ‘why, O Lord? Why do you tolerate these?’ and in verse 4 he even had his own conclusions.
Therefore the law is paralysed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.
It was like giving God a sermon and letting Him realize the offshoot of the delay. Habakkuk questioned God thoroughly and even challenged Him but despite this, he got the answer he never expected which blew his mind away.
“Look at the nations and watch — and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.
I am raising up the Babylonians, [Or Chaldeans] that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling-places not their own.
They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honour.
Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar. They fly like a vulture swooping to devour;
they all come bent on violence. Their hordes [The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.] advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand.
They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; they build earthen ramps and capture them.
Then they sweep past like the wind and go on — guilty men, whose own strength is their god.”
“What? I was asking for help and you’ll give us these?” , that must be the reaction of Habakkuk. Why would God answer violence with violence? Injustice with injustice? Pain with pain? I believe every Christian has experienced this season in his life when one cries for help and yet things get worse and you end up with nothing. You were praying for financial blessing and yet you got bankrupt instead, you were praying for healing and yet complications came up, you were asking for a boyfriend and yet no one even bothers to befriend you. You try to fix things but then things screw themselves without you knowing. You pray hard and even fast for certain breakthroughs and years pass by and nothing changes, it’s still you with no permanent job, no car and your father’s still sick and dying. In these times, you start to reminisce the time when you are still a baby Christian and you were spoiled. Every prayer gets answered and every quiet time’s so fruitful. You are so on fire that all your tweets and facebook posts are all about worship and God and fellowship. But then when the stormy season arrives, your faith takes a dip and the depth of that downfall would entirely depend on how strong your faith is. Mine had its own dips, some during hard times and some during worry-free days. The trend was, first I start to have unfruitful quiet times because I don’t hear anything from God or do not have my quiet time at all. Then I’ll realize I am already missing church services and fellowship. That is when I start to get back on track and wrestle with God for answers. And truly enough, God listens and gives you the grace to ask more and seek for answers. When Habakkuk realized that no matter how hard he’d question God’s plans, they won’t change, he started to zap back and acknowledge the sovereignty of God.
O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.
It was a turning point for Habakkuk and he chose to stay and stand in obedience to the will of God. It was a great reminder that God’s ways and thoughts are higher than his. In our journey as Christians, we encounter this moment when we start accepting what’s laid in front of us and abandon all the questions. That no matter how hard we struggle in finding answers, something will happen that would definitely drive us to our knees. These are the times when one stops wrestling with God and starts embracing Him. This is exemplified by Jesus twice. First is when he was asking God to take away the cup when praying in Gethsemane and second when He’s already on the cross and cried out to God “Father, father, why have you forsaken me?”. But at the end of the day, Jesus still chose to obey what His Father willed him to do. At the end he still proclaimed “Into your hands, I commit my spirit” and with great surrender finally said “It is finished”. That was the time when asking questions doesn’t change anything and to obey is the only resolution, when Jesus stopped wrestling with God and He started embracing God.
God is never intimidated with our questions, in fact He gives us the grace to even wrestle with Him more. The interesting truth is the word Habakkuk has two meanings: Wrestle and Embrace. So it is only fitting to live out what this word stands for. Just as what Jesus and Habakkuk did, after the wrestling with God, may we learn to embrace God and proclaim His every truth and see every present circumstance as part of something greater in the future.
Based on the preaching by Ptr. Dan Harder @ Victory Christian Fellowship
Tough Love
March 4, 2011 
When circumstances seem to take hold of me and my temper and patience are both compromised, I fold. All these years I believed in the lie that for as long as you have enough strings to pull and extensions to lengthen your cord, all is well. I was deceived. I thought that patience could be stretched even to the point of complete silence over matters that hurt me. I injected forgiveness in every awkward situation, may it be of slight insult or complete humiliation. What’s evil is I have never really forgotten them. I stayed silent for the sake of peace-keeping and true enough, the enemy creeps in silence and uses peace to steal and to kill. I was caught off guard. It was my weakest moment- heart unguarded and wisdom was lacking. With all the grudges I never thought would reside in my heart, I ran to people for comfort and advice. Person to person I got rebuked and I felt the need to just let go of things. And so I did. What turned out to be wrong was, I did not realize that an issue swept under the rug would always be found when someone dared to do the cleaning. It was one big mistake to forgive and try to forget but what’s much bigger is running away from confrontation. Tough love I always share but it is only lately that I’ve taken a grip on the whole essence of it.
Truth telling or peace-keeping. I’ve learned that it is better to be slapped or get a spit on the face after a confrontation than to fold and let things get swept by time. Even if you subscribe to peace, the tension will always come back and peace will be harder and harder to keep. Suppressed emotions are only suppressed, they never get lost. No matter how petty the issue may be, I learned that telling the truth is still the best choice, may it entail a tainted reputation or a broken relationship. Ephesians 4:25 tells us to ‘put away falsehood, let every one speak in truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another’. First, we are to stop lying to each other and second, we are to speak the truth in love. I resolve to stop acting noble and start being confrontational which demands tender love and understanding. I wish I was courageous enough to confront people even if the issues were too small. If only, things would have never gotten this far.
Well-being or comfort. To love as Jesus loves, you have to look at people through His eyes. No matter how hard it may be, or how hurt you’ll become afterwards, you still have to think of the well-being of the people you love. When I chose peace-keeping, it was a huge comfort for me but not with the other party. I learned tough love doesn’t only require tender love but also sacrificial love. When one truly wants to hold on to a relationship, the consequences of open rebuke will not matter. May you get bruised after the confrontation or get inspired, the important thing is that you let go of the discomfort in exchange of a greater joy that comes from reconciliation.
So what now is tough love? Tough love is choosing truth telling over peace-keeping and protecting the well-being of the beloved in exchange of the comfort in the relationship or even with your reputation. Tough love is not letting other people to play God and mediate in your situation but to take responsibility in facing it on your own. Tough love is not about role-playing or pointer a finger on who’s to blame. It is more on accepting one’s defeat for the sake genuine peace. While it goes with tender love, which enables a person to feel precious and appreciated, it also works with sacrificial love. And this truth is big. It makes you lay down all your cards on the table forfeiting a probable win. It means taking the risk of having to deal with probable pretense, immaturity or vainglory and totally abandoning self-righteousness, all for the sake of saving a relationship.
To walk the talk on tough love by putting it in practice when it’s needed the most is hard. It would even sometimes look impossible. In my case, I learned it the hard way and trust me, if it’s not by God’s anointing I wouldn’t even recognize the need for it.
Handling issues with tough love demands maturity and wisdom. That’s why it is my prayer for myself and for you as well, that God would continually teach us how to love the best way possible –tough but genuine. Also, I pray that He’ll give us enough wisdom and conviction to just call on Him whenever the need arises. For it is not through the hands of man that life’s lessons could be learned. If a mediator is all we need, we must gaze directly above and call upon the one who is able and has enough wisdom and power to put things in the proper light.
Every one needs tough love- a friend, a family member, or what have you. This is the reason why every one must know how to give it and if given the chance, one must give it the right way.
Fire consume me, burn within me
February 26, 2011
I resolved to postpone the valentine messages for the month of March. For this post, let me share the essay i mentioned in my previous post. Honestly, i do not know if this is allowable but i took the liberty of sharing this with you. I hope my cry will also be yours- to proclaim God’s goodness and love to the ends of the earth.
There was once a time when somebody asked me why do I want to become a doctor and I failed to give an answer. I was speechless. It was the most common question people shoot at those aspiring doctors like me and yet I wasn’t able to give a reasonable answer. I left the conversation with the only statement I had in mind “to heal the sick and save lives”. It was so mediocre, hardly interesting and totally embarrassing. Even when I was a child, I already knew that becoming a doctor was what I really wanted but it was only now that I understand its purpose. My uncle, who was then a radiologist, kept on saying that this profession opens a lot of opportunities for someone to reach out and at the same time grow immeasurably in so many ways. I was influenced. I studied hard to get into the best pre-med course I knew and now finally am a few steps closer to that dream.
What would I be ten years from now? It would be lame if I say I will be rich and famous and perhaps still be studying. Because I know, ‘reaching out’ doesn’t only mean helping people and healing the sick; that the growth that my uncle was talking about is more than wealth and intellect. It points to something that brings joy and peace that transcends all understanding and that there is more to being a physician besides literally saving lives.
To answer the question, ten years from now I can see myself having a successful career. At this point in time, I have already earned my diploma, finished my residency and perhaps already pursuing my chosen field of specialization. To go into details, I know at the start of my career, I will be working in a private institution in Metro Manila for training and experience. I will be working there for quite a few years then I’ll transfer into a government-owned hospital pursuing what has become my passion over the years - excellence and service. There, I could reach out to people belonging to different social strata and yet giving them the same medical treatment and the best medical service I could give. Perhaps if God blesses me abundantly, I will be able to put up my own hospital in a rural area providing access to world-class medical facilities and services at lower costs.
After serving the Filipino people with my profession I believe a major turning point in my life will come afterwards. Even at this time I believe God has already been paving the way for me to exercise my spiritual gifts apart from the skills I will be acquiring in the medical field. I can therefore boldly say that after years of serving the country and its people, I will be going out to reach out to the nations.
If there is one important thing I acquired during my undergraduate years that I’d carry over throughout my lifetime, it would be my compassion to the lost. It was during these years that I started planning my life, laying down all my hopes and dreams before the altar of the Lord. I have been waiting patiently on Him. And it was in those years that God started to put into my heart the need and conviction to minister to those who haven’t met Him; to just love people just as He loves them; to look people through His eyes with compassion and love. Along with my chosen career, I know by faith that I could fulfill the great commission- to go to the ends of the earth, proclaiming His word over the lives of the people. And this is what I have planned to do. I do not know exactly when, I do not know how but I know in God’s perfect timing, all will fall into place in accordance to His will.
There is something great in being a physician that I want to take hold and take advantage of. Being in this profession opens doors to a lot of opportunities in meeting people. May they be of the same profession, in the same field, or may they be the ones that I will be serving, it doesn’t matter. For me, more than reaching out to these people and healing whatever is aching in their bodies is the idea that in every conversation, in every consultation, I will be having the opportunity to lead them a step closer to meeting God; that in every healing and in every successful operation, it is not I or my team who will be glorified but His name and His name alone. As what an author of a book says, “True fulfillment doesn’t come from self-gratification, but of sacrificial love”. And sacrificial love here means to love as God loves and part with whatever is precious in this world for the sake of others. By this I can therefore toss bills and give free medical attention just to plant seeds of faith in the hearts of my patients so whatever was lost shall be found. This has been the cry of my heart and I claim it by faith for it is what God has promised.
I know some people may find my plans weird. They may even raise their eyebrows when they’ll hear all of these but it doesn’t matter. After all, I believe the sense of fulfillment in this profession will not be based on how wealthy I have become or how intellectually fulfilled I will be. Neither it is based on how many lives I have saved or how many books I have written. It will come from the fact that at the end of it all, I know my career will not be put into vain. That there will be molding, shaping and pruning in order for me to be what God has destined me to be. And that at the end of the day, I can say I have fully grown, not just in skills but also in faith.
Ten years from now, I am already a full-fledged physician-slash-evangelist and the transformation shall be complete. From that person who was unable to give a justification to her decision in pursuing medicine, I will be that someone who’s willing to open her book to people and share what I have learned all these years. I will be that doctor who will be the justification of my very own cause; a doctor who won’t just heal the sick and literally save lives but will touch hearts and bring them closer to the love of God.
Maria Lorraine Garcia Bugayong
This is the cry of my heart. May the fire burn within me, consume me and set me apart.