I GOT HIT!

I lined up to get an NBI clearance the other day.  I decided to get my clearance the "normal" way, just like any other normal Filipino citizen who needs to get a clearance.  I do know someone who could have helped me get one easily, breaking the line, and getting the clearance in less than an hour.  I could have asked him for help, but I decided to just line up.  And I didn't regret it.  I did stay in the NBI office for four hours in the heat of their building, waiting.  It's a good thing they had enough chairs for everyone to sit down, but it was still a long four hour wait.
Finally I was in front of the window, facing a computer monitor, watching and checking as they were typing the details.  My picture was taken, fingerprints recorded, and when it was all over the monitor flashed a big "HIT" sign.
Those of us in the line sort of enjoyed watching the other applicants ahead of us go through the same process, and watching the different reactions when they either got a "NO HIT" or "HIT" flash on the screen.  Getting a "HIT" means that either you have an ongoing case, or there is someone with a similar name as you who has a case, and they need to double check whether or not it is the applicant.

As I was watching applicant after applicant get their "verdict", I was thinking to myself - I had no case, no complaint, no blotter filed against me in the past, so most probably I would get a "NO HIT" when my name was submitted.  But to my surprise I got a "HIT".  I wanted to shout "no, I'm innocent", but of course that would get me nowhere.  In my mind, though, I did shout - I'm innocent, I'm not guilty of anything, I don't have, nor have ever had, a case filed against me!  Why would I get a "hit"?  Of course there might just be another Benitez who has an on going case in the justice system, but if he doesn't have the same first name, the same birthday, the same parents - why give me a "hit"?  Anyway, who are we to question their system.  All I have to do is go back after one week and hopefully it will show that I should be cleared.

It's different though with the Justice system of God.  I remember the first time that someone shared the Gospel with me.  I'm not talking about the "gospel" that is shared every Sunday, but the Gospel, the good news of Christ concerning our salvation.  It was a Friday night, my and my friends were about to watch an x-rated movie, and one of our friends, who had just become a Christian, told us that what we were about to do was sin.  And I wondered - how could this be sin?  We're just normal human beings, young men, just wanting to satisfy the lustful desires of our body in a right way.  We weren't going to commit a crime.  How could this be sin?
And our friend started sharing bible verses with us.  And it bothered my heart.  I never knew that God was angry at immoral acts.  I thought everything we were doing was normal.  Until I was placed under the judgment light of God.  I suddenly realized I was a sinner in need of salvation.  I got HIT!  And I was guilty.
I thank God that, though the first part of the good news is "bad news", that we have offended a holy and righteous God, the next part is an offer for salvation from that bad news - that Jesus Christ paid the penalty that we are deserving of, and if we believe in Him as our Savior, put our faith in His sacrifice, not ours, we will be forgiven.  I am guilty.  My "hit" was unquestionable.  But Christ paid the price to take away my guilt before the heavenly Father, and allowed me to have new life with Him forever, till eternity.

The Bible says that we all have sinned.  Romans 3:23  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  The word "sinned" here means we have missed the mark, far from the "bulls eye" of God's glory.  No matter how near we may be to the bulls eye, as long as we didn't hit it, we have sinned.
There are many who believe they follow the ten commandments, that they follow the golden rule, and that they are generally good, and have not gravely hurt others.  But standing in the light of God's holiness we are all sinners.  No matter how small our sin, no matter when we committed it, we have fallen short of God's standard.  And that nullifies our chances of enjoying eternity with Him, and of having a right relationship with Him.  We are guilty, and the penalty must be paid - death.
But, there is good news - though all of us have sinned, we can be justified.
Rom 3:24  and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

By God's grace everyone is given opportunity to realize our state before God, and the same grace reveals to us the solution to this sinful state.  And yet, when flashed with a "hit" we try to justify ourselves and try to believe that we are doing enough good for us to be in a right relationship with Him and enjoy eternity with Him.  But this is not the case.  In God's eyes, the holy Judge, all of us get a "hit".
But by the same grace God may open your heart to believe His good news, allow us to repent of our sins, and believe in Him as our Savior.  Then we will be saved.
The "HIT" may not be erased, but beside it will come another flash "BUT SAVED BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH"
Ephesians 2:8  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9  not by works, so that no one can boast.

Decisions, decisions

Just visiting my other blog site here in blogger.  I'm surprised that the site has still kept in running.  I'm grateful, and now wondering whether I should just close one and keep the other.  Hehe.  This is the problem when you maintain two sources of whatever it is - a blog, a girlfriend, a mistress, even a course in college.  Eventually you will have to choose which one is the best, the one you love, the one you prefer.  For me, I'm back to deciding if I will go back to Blogger or stick with Wordpress.  Ah...decisions, decisions.

Reminds me of the Christian life.  The Lord also warned us about keeping two kinds of lives.  It's just impossible.
Mat 6:24  "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
As Bob Dylan sang "you gotta serve somebody"...and for Christians it's got to be the Lord.

Luke 10:41  "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things,

Luke 10:42  but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

Martha wanted to have the best of both worlds - preparing and enjoying the presence of God.  She later learned that when you choose to do one you sacrifice the other.  Jesus said only one thing is needed, and that was enjoying the presence of the Lord.

I'm glad, by God's grace, He lead me to follow Him.  And I trust in no one else but Him to keep me there.
I remember the story about Luciano Pavarotti, when he was trying to decide whether he would be a teacher or an opera singer.  His father told him "you cannot sit in between two chairs, for eventually you will fall.  Choose one chair".  For a Christian this is not even a choice - it's a call.  By grace we are lead to the forgiveness and life of our Savior.  But in our everyday walk the pull to follow the world is still strong.  Eventually we will have to choose - God or the world...His way or sin.  Praise God He has given us the grace and strength to choose Him.

But I still have to decide - Blogger or Wordpress?  Maybe I'll keep both.  Decision to be shared soon!

God bless you all.

Transferring Blog Site

Hi to all who are following my blog...I'll be using my other coffee confessions blog for the meantime, mainly because I can access it through my kindle fire tablet.  It's rbcoffeconfessions.wordpress.com

Hope you guys follow me there also. 

Being in Front

I was driving home around lunch time, and when I reached a red light in an intersection I found myself behind a long bed truck also turning left.  I usually don’t like driving behind long bed trucks because they’re usually slow, and when you are in a two-lane road it’s sometimes hard to overtake them.  Although this truck wasn’t carrying anything, it still did not go as fast as I wanted it to go, and, as I expected, I had a hard time finding a way for me to overtake it.  So I patiently drove behind it until I found a way out!

As it turned left to a usual shortcut leading to a main road, I decided not to follow it, and took the long way that also lead to the same road.  As I reached the main road I saw in my rear view mirror that the truck I was following was now behind me.  I found myself smiling, relieved that at least I’m not behind the truck following its pace of driving, but I was now in front, driving as fast as I wanted to without the truck hindering me.

As I was smiling a thought entered my mind – my being in front, ahead of the truck, was what made me happy.  As long as I was behind the truck, and it was dictating my speed, I didn’t like it.  But when I found a way to overtake it, to be ahead, in front, doing things my way, that’s what made me happy.  I was consumed with the desire to be first, to be ahead of the truck.  Hmmm…I thought again…just like life, isn’t it?

It’s all about being first, being ahead of the pack, doing what we want, in our own pace, in our own way.  And if anyone blocks our way, or hinders what we want to do, we always find a way to overtake them.  And if there is no way to overtake them, when we can’t dictate the pace, when we don’t get to do things our way, that’s what ruins our day.

It’s interesting how God teaches us the opposite.  It’s all about humbling ourselves, and realizing that we can’t always have things our way.

1 Peter 5:6  Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.

Could this be why there are many who are impatient with God, frustrated even?  We want things to go a certain way, but God seems to be blocking the way.  He has His pace, and we have ours.  That is why there are many who decide to give up on God, “overtake” Him, and go their own way.  And yet the Scripture above tells us to humble ourselves under God’s might hand so that He may lift us up.  If we are truly walking with God it is so important to stay behind Him, and allow Him to set the pace, and IN DUE TIME, or in God’s time, things will fall into place.  So many times we want to lift ourselves up, when it should be God doing that.

Philippians 2:3-4  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4  Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

It’s the same thing God asks from us in our relationships with others.  Sure, there will be times that we are leading the way, and things may be going our way.  But there will be times when we need to humble ourselves, shelve our own personal desires and goals for a moment, and consider others also.  There may be a reason that someone is leading us at this moment, that we are following someone else’s pace.  It is so hard to consider others better than us, or consider their interests also.  As we humble ourselves we  eventually realize that sometimes the other person’s ideas or ways are actually better than ours!

I remember driving to Baguio City when I was still in college, and young as I was I was impatient with how the car in front of me was not overtaking the truck that was in front of him.  So I decided to overtake.  As I entered the other lane I was surprised to see that I was just approaching a curve, and there was a bus coming my way!  So I quickly swerved back to my lane, and eventually realized that was the reason why the car wasn’t overtaking.  He was not overtaking for a reason, and I didn’t see it his way.  He was right all along.

Is being first, the one in front of others, something that consumes us, something that we must always have?  Sometimes we need to realize that we need to step on the brakes, humble ourselves, and realize that there may be a reason why God is asking us to humble ourselves before Him, and allow Him to set the pace.  And there may be a reason why God is asking us to humble ourselves before others, to learn from them, from the circumstance we are in. 

My Sardines Tradition

I was having breakfast this morning – bottled Spanish style sardines.  This is a usual treat I enjoy when we have the budget to buy a bottle – it is quite expensive, especially the really “sarap” ones.  Anyway, back to my story.  As I was munching on my breakfast, it brought a “mini” flashback.

I remember when I was young, my mother taught me how to eat sardines.  Actually I first saw her eating sardines in a certain way, and then she eventually taught me and explained to me why.  It was the canned sardines during that time, the flat can type, most probably imported.  What she taught me was to slice it open first so that it opened up flat.  And then we would take out the bones that were right in the middle of the fish.  She explained, just like eating any other fish, that we should take out the bones so that it would not hurt us or choke on it.  And ever since then that would be how I would eat my sardines.  Slice it open, lay it flat, take out the bones, and then munch!

Until I started working.  The company I worked for started selling canned sardines.  We were the first marketing arm of VMC brand of canned sardines and bangus.  And so, just like any other marketing company, before selling the product we first had a product knowledge seminar on how sardines were cooked.  And that’s when I learned that the sardines in the can were “pressure-cooked”, so that by the time it is canned the bones would be so soft they were actually edible!

So there was no need to slice open a sardine, take out the bones, so it would not hurt us while eating.  For so many years I followed a tradition of my mother, which turned out to be useless.  It’s funny how we have so many traditions about so many things without really asking, or studying about it.  We just follow without any question whatsoever.

In everyday practices like eating, or cooking, and doing other things, there may be no harm whatsoever in doing things traditionally, as the family members passed on through the years.  We all have those experiences – how we eat, how we drink medicine, how we clean cars, etc.  But in the spiritual realm, in our walk as Christians, I believe we need to be a little more careful and understanding concerning traditions.  For what may seem innocent and good to us may not be to God.

In our walk as Christians some traditions may seem trivial, simple differences in how we worship, and yet without our knowing it may actually be useless (to God, not to us), and detrimental to our life now, and to our eternity.  We get so used to “worship” according to what we have been taught without checking with the past, which God so graciously revealed to us in His Word, the Bible.

The Pharisees during Jesus’ time were so seeped in tradition that Jesus had to warn His disciples:

Mark 7:6-8  He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 7  They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.' 8  You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."

For them they were worshipping.  But little did they know that God was not accepting their worship, for with their lips they prayed, but their hearts were far from Him.  And their traditions were rules taught by men, and not taught by God.

In our worship of the Lord how important it is for us to make sure we’re not just following rules taught by men, but to follow the command of our Lord.  It may seem good and practical to us, but is actually useless to the Lord. 

God is so willing to give us a “God knowledge seminar”.  He’s prepared the manual – the Bible.  And if our hearts are just open there are a few things we can learn, and unlearn, with regards to how we approach God.  And, it is always good to ask, to check, if we’re doing what is pleasing to the Lord.