Back to his Favorite Burger

If you ask my youngest son where his favorite burger is served, it will be the one in East View Hotel, a small hotel located in the East area of Bacolod City.  We tried the burgers in almost all restaurants and fast food outlets, but nothing changed his love for the burger served in East View Hotel.  So imagine how he felt when we heard a rumor that the burger was not being served in the hotel anymore.  He would continue to try other burgers in other restaurants, but they never compared with his "first love" burger!  He would always comment that they were not as good as what East View would serve.

A few weeks ago it just so happened that we had a discipleship group gathering in the East View Hotel.  As we checked the menu to our surprise the burger was there.  We noticed though that there were two menus that they gave out, one was more for drinks and snacks, and the other one for meals.  And that's where we felt the rumor came, because if you had the menu for snacks and drinks you would not see the burger offered there.  So, just to check, we (four of us) ordered the hamburger.  And, behold, it was the same one, with the same taste!  I couldn't wait to tell my son about the good news.

The Sunday after I told him that the burger was still there I decided to bring the family to the hotel, and, of course, my son was excited.  Guess what he ordered?  Of course - the hamburger!  And throughout the meal he enjoyed his "first love" hamburger.  I don't know if there are parents who are like me - but it is a joy to watch your children truly enjoying a meal.  Every bite, every chomp, is a joy!

And so, it is officially back - my son's favorite burger, back to his first love burger.  And for sure we're going to keep going back there.

When you have tasted the best, you will always go back to it, and you will never be satisfied with others offered to you, because you have tasted the best.

Just like the Lord in our life.

Psalms 34:8  Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.

I wonder...have we tasted and seen that our Lord is good?  More than that, in our hearts, do we know that He is the best?  Nothing and no one else can take the place of God, the moment you have realized that He Himself is the best.  You can try "tasting" what the world offers...but if you have truly tasted the goodness of God in your life, you will eventually go back to Him, your first love.

1 Peter 2:2-3  Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,  (3)  now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

And if you have truly tasted of the goodness of God, you will crave for Him, crave for His spiritual milk, His word that nourishes and strengthens your heart.  And when you crave for something you will look for it until you find it.

Just like the burger my son desired for.  It had never left.  And when he tasted it again, it brought joy to his heart (and stomach).

That goodness of God in our life begins with our salvation.  Actually, it begins and ends with our salvation, for there is no other good that God can do that can compare with His grace saving us from our sins, from our spiritual death before God.

Romans 5:8  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Ephesians 2:4-5  But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,  (5)  made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.

There may be times when we will be wooed by the world to love what it offers, or the lusts and desires of our flesh may try to reign and control us once again.  But how important it is to know that this first love of ours - our Lord Jesus Christ, has never left us, and will never leave us...He will always be there.  Eventually even when we try to take a bite of what the world offers, it will never satisfy.  And all we have to do is go back to the gracious arms of God, everyday calling us back to His presence, protected by His grace and peace.

Check your hearts - there should be nothing and no one else who compares with your first love - God.  And if you think He has left you - He hasn't.  He's right there.  He's calling you and drawing you to Him.  Just flow back to Him, and enjoy.

Giving for the sake of Giving.

Just a few days ago I decided to give Christmas gifts to the men who assist the students and drivers of the school during mornings and dismissal time.  It is a very chaotic and stressful time when parents with cars take their children to school, all of them arrive almost at the same time, and everyone wanting to drop their children by the gate.  And even though it is a "Christian school" (although technically speaking there is no such thing as a Christian school, just the people who run it), drivers will be drivers, each one wanting to be first, each parent wanting their child dropped as near to the gate as possible.  And so this causes traffic.
I see these men who help out in traffic and helping the kids with their bags, trying to move things quickly to help out the traffic, and I just felt like blessing them. Just a small token of my thanks to them for trying their best to help out.  We even have city Traffic Enforcers manning the streets, taking care of the traffic during that time.  I decided to give them a small blessing for Christmas.  Just a small gift showing my appreciation for their work.
6 of them, all in all.

A few days after I gave them the gifts, while dropping my son in school, I found myself waiting for them to acknowledge me, to recognize me as one of probably a number of other parents who gave them gifts.  Not that I was after any special treatment from them (although that would have been nice, hehe), I just found myself wanting to receive a wave of the hand, a smile, or maybe even a thank you again for the gift they received.
But none of them did.  Maybe it was just the hectic moment...or maybe they just forgot that I gave them a gift.  It's funny because I was actually expecting them to acknowledge me, to recognize me, for what I had done for them.  And for a split second (or probably more than that...a split minute maybe, hehe) I felt disappointed that they did not even remember that I gave them a gift.
But in the next second...a nudge from the Holy Spirit - was that my main motive for giving?
It reminded me of how our sin nature works.  And it reminded me of a teaching of our Lord during His sermon on the mount:

Matthew 6:2-4  So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.  (3)  But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,  (4)  so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Simply put...giving for a Christian is done to please the Master, not for others to honor us, or for us to receive a reward. We are not supposed to let our left hand know what our right hand gave.  Our giving is in secret, in our heart, and it is our heavenly Father who rewards us, and that is in secret also.

In other words, we give because we want to bless.  Period.

And yet our sinful nature longs for recognition, for acknowledgment, sometimes even for a reward.

But our real reward comes from God.  And it may not be a material reward...it may just be the joy in our hearts that God, by His grace, used us to bless others.  That's all.

Give to give.  Not to be recognized.  Not to receive.  It is Giving for the sake of giving, giving to bless.  

For God's glory, in our heart and in the heart of the person we blessed.

Thank God for His word, and His continually reminding us of how we should be living.

A Thorough Washing

Most of the time we (either me or our helper) wash our cars by hand.  Just a rag and a bucket of water to take out whatever dirt or dust we see on the car.  But once in a while I treat our cars to a car wash.  Some people call them a "car spa", as if cars know what they were experiencing while being washed.  But bringing a car through a car wash is a pleasing experience for a car owner.
First, they use a power sprayer to get as much dirt and grime out of the body of the car and the tires.  They spray water through every crack, every corner, and you see the dirt being pushed out.  Then they use car shampoo, again on every visible part of the car, which not only cleans the dirt off, but after drying leaves the body of the car with a certain smoothness (or is it just my imagination?).  After that the car looks spotless!  And even it rains on the same day that you had your car washed, at least you know that rain fell on a clean car, and whatever dirt or mud that would stick to the car would be new dirt.

Watching my car being washed reminded me of how David asked the Lord to cleanse him after the Holy Spirit, through Nathan, revealed his sin of adultery:
Psalms 51:7  Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

Hyssop was a plant used by priests to symbolize ceremonial cleansing of sin.  David was not referring to priests performing their duty, but asking God to cleanse him inside, as if with hyssop, to make him clean before the eyes of God.
And, he asked God to wash him so that he would be whiter than snow.
Now that's a power washing...one that only God can do.  And will do.

By position we are all washed clean when we come to believe in Jesus as our Savior.
1 Corinthians 6:11  And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

But in everyday life, when we do not walk by the Spirit, we may still fall into sin as we follow the desires of our flesh.  A Christian is not sinless...we just sin less.  But there still is a tendency for us to sin.  For that we need God's cleansing for the sin we commit.  

1 John 1:8-9  If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  (9)  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

It is not a cleansing for us to be accepted again before God, as if we have lost it.  No, we have been fully accepted when we believed Christ as our Savior.  This is a cleansing, a forgiveness, that keeps our fellowship with God pure and unhindered.

This washing should come everyday...actually, every moment that we are convicted by the Holy Spirit of sin, and as He restores us to fellowship with God.

This is a thorough washing we have enjoyed with our faith in Christ as Savior, and that we continue enjoy as we walk in the light, in fellowship with Christ.

Let's enjoy this loving expression of God's grace through Christ.

Do We need a Choker?

Our dog, Rocko, a belgian tervuren, as big and fierce as he is, is just like a regular dog to us.  He is a guard dog, whose bark scares people who knock on our gate, and that makes him a good deterrent for would be criminals who will hopefully think twice before trying to enter our house.  (My prayer everyday is that God will protect our home, and use Rocko as His instrument)
But for us, he is our family dog.  He gets as excited as any other dog when we arrive home.  And he has also grown to be a "house dog", as he stays with us inside the house.  The only time he is not inside the house is at night because we make him sleep outside.  It's a routine for him.  From the moment we wake up he stays with us inside the house, but when the last one to sleep begins to close the lights he begins to slowly walk out the front door.

But this routine was broken when we had him sleep overnight inside the house. Rocko gets hyper and bothered when it rains hard, and most especially when it starts to thunder.  He runs around trying to find the thunder, following the vibration, frantically trying to run after it.  And as long as it is raining hard he does not like staying outside.  So, there was one night when we had him sleep inside the house because he did not want to go outside.  The one night turned into two, then three. It was no problem...he wasn't peeing or pooping inside the house, but eventually, even when it wasn't raining, he did not want to sleep outside anymore.  And even when we would call him to go out, he would start to hide under the table.

Then, I noticed one thing - he wasn't wearing his choker.  A choker is a chain type collar made of light iron, that is really made to be what it is called -  a choker.  This is one of the ways to train a dog to obey (one that not everyone agrees with, but we have seen its advantage, as I will share).  When a dog is not obeying a command, a little pull on the chain will slightly choke the dog, something very uncomfortable, and the dog will eventually relate disobedience to the pull and yank.  So, to remind him who is in charge, a little pull on the chain will remind him.
And that's what happened - we put back the choker on him.  And when it was time for him to go out all we had to do was hold the chain, and even without pulling on it, he would obey and follow our orders for him to go out of the house.
That is important for a dog - to remind him who is in charge, and part of that is using the choker.  He identifies the discomfort of being slightly choked with disobedience, and ends up obeying even while we're just holding the choker.

It reminds me of how the Lord does not want to deal with us.
Psalms 32:8-9  I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.  (9)  Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, Whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check, Otherwise they will not come near to you.

When God becomes our Lord and Master He begins to teach us and show us the way we should live.  God counsels us through His word, and the working of the Spirit, as He watches over us every moment of our lives.

In the psalm the Lord reminds His people not to be like the horse or the mule which have no understanding, but need a bit and bridle to hold them in check.  In other words God doesn't want us being choked, holding us in check with a choker, reminding us painfully to obey.  God wants us to obey with all our heart, willingly and cheerfully obeying His teaching and counsel to us.

Sadly, there are many times in our life when our God will lovingly use a choker to keep us in check.  But the point is for us to eventually not need a choker, and just lovingly and willingly obeying His every teaching and counsel to us.

And you know what moves us to obey?

Psa 32:7  You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah. 

When we hide in Him.  When He becomes our refuge.  That's when we see that it is our God who preserves us from trouble, and surrounds us when we are in trouble and delivers us.  This is when we realize that His every command, His every counsel, is meant for us to be safe, safe from this world and from the enemy who only has one desire - to steal, kill and destroy.  This is when our obedience becomes loving and willing.

So, do we need a choker?  Or will we make the Lord our hiding place and lovingly and willfully receive His teaching and counsel.