Someone Prayed for My Salvation

There is a song that we used to sing often in church services titled "I stand in Awe of You".  That song just became more alive and real in my life after hearing a short story from a very close brother in Christ and friend whom I invited to share in our midweek service.

This brother was my schoolmate in De La Salle University.  We became white belts in TaeKwonDo in DLSU together, and we got our black belts together.  We also became "brothers" in the TaeKwonDo blackbelt brotherhood, both of us belonging to the first batch of this brotherhood, which is still alive up to today (going 36 years).  We trained together, ate together...we were like brothers really.

Then time separated us when we graduated from college, and when we both became inactive in TaeKwonDo.  But the long separation became good to us when we both found out that we were born again Christians!  What a joy it was to know that both of us were being used in the Lord's kingdom, preaching the gospel and His word.

God was also so good in allowing this brother to visit Bacolod city often with a church that would hold seminars for pastors and leaders.  And every time he would visit I would always try to invite him to speak and encourage the brethren in our church.

It was in this latest visit that he shared something that utterly blew my mind, and made me stand in awe of how compassionate and loving this great God we serve is.
He simply shared that when we were in college, he already was a Christian.  And he also shared that he was also praying that one day I would be a Christian!  I had no idea - first that he was a Christian (although I can testify that he had a character that we could call Christ like), and second that he, and his wife, who was his girlfriend then, was actually praying that I would also know Jesus as my Savior and Lord.  He shared how he had a picture of me in his desk that he would use as a reminder to pray for me - and in that picture I was "high" (on marijuana).  How did he know I was high - his answer "his eyes".

As early as that time my Savior was already moving in my midst, moving the hearts of His children around me to pray for me.  Unknowingly He was already moving, making a way for me to finally open my eyes and recognize Him as my Savior and the Lord of my life.
Oh, how my heart bursts in thanksgiving, worship and honor of this compassionate and loving God, even when I was so far from him, living a life dependent on other things that replaced Him - and yet He reached out and saved me.  And He was using His children, specifically my friend, to pray for me, placing His burden in his heart moving him to pray for my salvation.

And now - many many years after that prayer of my friend began, where am I now?  Not only has my God saved me from my sins, not only am I living under His Lordship, experiencing His grace and change in my life day by day, and not only am I a pastor, humbly taking care of the church that He has entrusted to me and others to shepherd - but now I am continually learning how big and great and loving and gracious my God is.
It's never going to end.  My God is going to continually show me how great and gracious He is.

And this reminds me not to give up praying for my friends, loved ones, who still do not know God has Savior and Lord.  Because as He touches our hearts to pray for them this means that He is moving in their midst, preparing the way for them to hear the gospel and prayerfully respond to it!

Never give up praying.  Nothing is impossible for our God.  I am a living example of that.

And Agrippa said to Paul, "In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?" And Paul said, "Whether short or long, I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am--except for these chains."
(Acts 26:28-29)

I asked the Lord to unclog our toilet bowl

I haven't written in a while, but I need to write about this.  Psalm 34 says "Exalt the Lord with me".

Our toilet bowl got clogged.  We suspect a small plastic part of the toilet seat fell in and got accidentally flushed.  We tried everything - we tried using a plunger (even to the point of buing a new one, which might be what the Lord used, don't really know), putting a mixture of clorox, muriatic acid, cleanser, even shampoo!  But nothing seemed to work.

Then I prayed.  Yes, I did.  I asked the Lord to fix our toilet bowl.  Some of us will laugh at this, thinking what a simple and trivial thing to ask the Lord for.  But I did.  I prayed something like this - more or less, don't really remember... "Lord, please fix our toilet bowl.  We are five of us sharing one toilet.  It's going to be hard not being able to flush.  Please command your angel to move that plastic object, or unclog whatever it is that's clogging the bowl.  Thank you Lord."

A few minutes later I tried to flush, and it flushed all the way down!

Some will say the mixture of everything I put eventually did the job.  But nothing could take away the smile in my heart, and in my face, knowing that the Lord answered my prayer.

What an awesome God.  I am humbled that our God would stoop down so low as to listen to a prayer to unclog a toilet bowl.  And then I realize that He did stoop down much lower than that when He decided to become man, die a painful death on a cross as payment for our sins.  And through our faith in who He is will graciously save us from sin.

Thank you Lord.

Settling for Less

If you are using a prepaid sim for your cellphone they give you a number of choices with regards to load.  You can load as low as 10 pesos, and even as high as 300 pesos, depending on your mood, or on how much money you have.  For me, for the past years that I have had a prepaid sim, the 200 peso load has served me well.  I can convert the full amount to have text unlimited to the same network, a number of minutes of free calls to the same network, plus 500 free texts to other networks for a whole month!  I can use it worry free for the whole month and just reload when it expires.  cool deal.

But this week, for what reason I have no idea (have you ever done something for no specific reason at all), I decided to go for the smaller amount.  I loaded 50 pesos, which, when converted, gives me unlimited text to the same network for one week, but later on only realized that it does not give me as much free texts to other networks and no free calls.  So, after around 2 days into the plan, when I tried to respond to a text message of a friend from another work I was surprised to find out I did not have enough load to text to other networks.  What a hassle!  All of a sudden I felt no satisfaction whatsoever in choosing the lower load.  It's not that I couldn't afford my usual 200 load, I just decided to go 50 pesos.  And it wasn't worth it.

That's what you get when you are able to "taste" the benefits of something, and then later on settle for less.  For whatever reason we choose the lesser option it does not become as satisfying as the better offer.

It works the same for those who truly walk with God.

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

John 4:13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Many know God, or know about God.  But not many have "tasted and seen" that the Lord is good.  This isn't just the "good" of blessings or of good things.  He who has tasted of God has had a deeper experience than just having prayers answered, or receiving good things.

How many of us know that God is good because though we were sinners made a way for us to be reconciled to Him?  He did this by sending the Son of God to become man and die for us on the cross.  This, and only this, is enough to make someone know that God is "good".  And even if other good things don't happen in our life, just the fact that God showed His love for us through the cross is enough to make us joyful.

How many of us have tasted the goodness of God even in the midst of trials and hardships?  How many of us know that despite the troubles we face in this world, our God has promised us not only eternity, but also that He would never leave us or forsake us, and that He would take care of our needs, give us strength during hard times.  His love, comfort, strength are what we taste and make us know that, despite our circumstances, He is good.

When we have a taste of this God, nothing else satisfies.  As Jesus told the Samaritan woman, if we drink the water that comes from Him we will never thirst!  We will always be satisfied, both eternally and the present life.

So why do we settle for less? We know we are true believers when we settle for less, and then realize it does not satisfy, and seek to come back to the One who alone can truly satisfy.

This is the way sin attacks us, lures us, away from God.  It promises us something better than what God has to offer, or has already offered to us.  When we succumb to temptation we eventually realize that it does not satisfy.

If you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, why go back to what does not satisfy?

Why settle for less?

Waiting for the Storm

To all followers of my blog (I've always wondered if there were any, hehe.  I'm sure some of you are there...thanks!) I have not been sharing my thoughts and experiences in ages!  I'm always praying for inspiration and guidance from above for both writing and what to write.  Keep praying with me!

We're in waiting mode right now in the Philippines.  There is another super storm coming our way, not as strong as Haiyan, but still strong!  The thing is - it's really slow.  It's big, strong, but slow, moving around 10kph if I'm not mistaken.  So for the past days they have been reporting when the storm is coming, how strong it is, where it will make landfall, and what we have to prepare.  The scope of the storm is so big that even if it does not make a direct hit here in Bacolod, where I live, for sure it will still bring a lot of rains and gusty winds.

Because we are all anxiously waiting for this storm, and are not really sure how strong it will be, we are already making some decisions that do not seem to be right.  For example yesterday, Friday, many schools decided to suspend classes.  My son in high school was made to go home earlier than the usual 5pm dismissal.  Even in our church we decided to cancel fellowship gatherings Friday night, again not knowing whether we would start feeling the effect of the storm or not.

Not that we, or the schools, made the wrong decisions.  With how big the storm looks in the satellite images being flashed on television and social sites it is hard to tell when it will really hit and how strong it will be, and so we needed to be careful.  There are also some panic-buying that is happening knowing that the possibility of brownouts are there.  Should we be panicking?  

Deep inside though I am sure that all of us know that we have no control whatsoever with this storm.  How it will hit, when it will hit, what the effects will be we really have no idea.  And so we really just need to trust in the Lord to take care of us, no matter what will come to pass.  Even with all the news and reports coming our way, and even with all the satellite images being flashed that gives us an idea of how, when and where about the storm, we still don't really know what is going to happen.

It's a perfect scenario for full trust in our Lord. As much as we want to be in control over events in our life, we don't.  There's nowhere else to go, nowhere else to turn, except to the sovereign Creator of our world and universe.

Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV)

5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

6 in all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make your paths straight.

It's the same scenario with the little storms that we face everyday in our life.  We all have circumstances, problems, needs that overwhelm us.  Many times they are as big as a super typhoon, and we all come out with our own "satellite images" of how big, how vast our situation is, and many times we make forecasts that cause us to panic, moving us to make decisions that sometimes are good, but often times, because of panic, turn out to be the wrong ones.

Just as we leave the forecasts of storms to weather experts and forecasters, we must also try not to make forecasts of our own with regards to our own circumstances and leave it with the "expert" - the One who created us and who knows us, and has actually written our lives already.

Psalms 139:16 (NIV)

16 ...All the days ordained for me

were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

Imagine, our God has already written all our days in His book, even while we were still in our mother's womb!  We have no idea what our tomorrow, or even the next minute of our life will be!  But He knows.  When you think about it, He is the only one we can trust in, should trust in.

So the next time we are tempted to come up with our own "satellite images" of our circumstances and make forecasts concerning them, let's come to our Creator, our God, and trust in Him with all our hearts, not leaning on our own understanding.  Let us acknowledge that He is with us, that He is sovereign over every circumstance of our life, good or bad, and He will set our paths straight.

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.