Feed Just One

“When you hold a banquet invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." Luke 14:13-14

We are the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, Jesus is inviting to the most inconceivably joyous heavenly banquet that lasts forever. Nothing we can do or give or give up, can ever repay Jesus who gave His life in the most excruciating, humiliating way, just so we can join Him.

No one is more generous than Jesus. And  when we give, we are just responding to His goodness. Here in Luke 14 He is merely asking us to echo His generosity in a small way. When we are generous to those who cannot repay us, we do it to Him as well. (Matthew 25:40) 

Jesus talked a lot about money. He said that we should store up treasures in heaven, not here on earth where it could easily disappear. A building can get burned down, stocks could lose value in a single day, jewelry can get stolen, money even in the bank loses its value from inflation!!! 

Jesus said that where our treasure is, that is where our heart is. (Luke 12:34) If we want to see where our heart is, we only need to look at our checkbook, our bank account.

Perhaps it is time to think purposefully about where our money goes. To put it where it cannot be stolen, where it cannot burn, where it will not devalue, or rust. I'm thinking inmates in prison, young children who need an education, livelihood projects, streetchildren. They can all be beneficiaries of our generosity and kindness. And it's not a matter of how much money we have either. As Mother Teresa used to say, “If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed just one.”

“Preaching to myself”

Love One Another

“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment.” Mark 12:30

How do we love God? This is expressed above all in prayer, for what person loves without minding the object of his love? We need to waste time with our Father, first of all. Thomas Brooks said this was a “secret key to heaven”. Prayer is absolutely vital to a human being. We need to pray as much as we need to breathe! 

I love what St. Augustine wrote, “Prayer is the encounter of God's thirst with ours." Indeed God thirsts for us to be close to Him, hungers for our love, waits for our communication. We will never encounter a God like Him in other religions or in the atheistic mindset because He is implausible. How can we hold in our mind a God who is timeless but entered time, all powerful but allowed Himself to be weak and tortured by the very creatures He came to save? Implausible. 

It is this same God who desires to live in communion with us. Just as the Father, Son and Spirit, live in constant love, in community with one another, we are also called to live in communion with each other. To love one another. 

It is ironic that this world is so interconnected now. We can easily talk to a friend halfway around the world through Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, etc. But how many actually do so? Families and friends are usually gathered about a table with their noses buried in their cellphones! 

When I am answering a message on my phone, or reading something on it, my little apo (grandchild) will put his tiny hands, one on each side of my face, so that I will concentrate on what he is saying. His earnest little face so close to my own reminds me there is nothing more important to this little person than connection. 

Sadly, there is a global mental health crisis. More people are lonely, depressed, starved of love. Although Generation Z (aged 18-22) is perhaps the most technologically connected, in the UCLA loneliness scale, they are the loneliest generation in America! Again, we need to waste time not only with God, but with our loved ones, our friends, our brothers and sisters. And leave our phones in our pockets. 

“Preaching to Myself”

Psalm 23

This morning I read from Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd.” This beautiful set of verses was written in 1000 BC in the Hebrew language most probably by King David. It is also known by the incipit, or the first few words in Latin, “Dominus regit me”. 

One of my favorite lines from this Psalm is, “Only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life..." (Psalm 23:6)

When I was reflecting about this, I was wondering how I could still claim this even if my brother is sick, and I do not know what the future will bring. How do I know this with certainty even if many of my countrymen were devastated by the recent typhoon, even if many of them need homes, livelihood, even the basic necessities like food and water! In spite of wars raging and babies in the womb being killed, and corruption running rampant? 

I think it is because after years of listening to God, knowing Him through the Book about Him, I know I can trust Him. He knows what He is doing, even if I do not understand why! 

Yes, only goodness and kindness and mercy and peace and love follow me all the days of my life. 

God is a faithful God. 

Longing to See God’s Face

“Lord, this is the people that longs to see Your face.” Psalm 24:6

In the 17th chapter of Luke, Jesus took Peter, James and John up a high mountain. As the men watched, Jesus’ appearance changed so that His face shone like the sun, and His clothing became dazzling white. Suddenly, Moses and Elijah appeared and began talking with Jesus. Why Moses, and why Elijah, was it only because Moses represented the law, and Elijah the prophets? 

In Exodus chapter 33, Moses asks to see God’s glorious presence, but the Lord said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you My name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” God continued, “you CANNOT see My face, for man shall not see Me and live.” Instead Moses saw God from behind. 

In 1 Kings 19, God gives Elijah a revelation of Himself when Elijah was downhearted because he was being hunted down for being zealous for the Lord. God told Elijah to stand before Him on Mount Sinai. Elijah experienced a mighty windstorm that hurled rocks loose, an earthquake and fire, but the Lord was in neither of those forces. God spoke to Elijah in a still, small, gentle whisper, but Elijah did not see His face. 

Moses and Elijah both experienced a theophany of God, but both of them were NOT permitted to see His face. In the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah lived to see God’s face.

These two theophanies of Moses and Elijah, along with other manifestations of God’s presence in the Old Testament, foreshadows the appearance of the Abrahamic God in Christ. Jesus is the final, climactic theophany. Through Jesus, the people who long to see God’s face can LIVE (John 14:9; Rev. 22:4)!

God’s Armor

“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil…Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness... In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, ...and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Ephesians 6:10-20

Why do we need God's armor? If we believe the Bible and I do, it's because there are unseen forces doing battle against us. Many people don't believe in the existence of the devil. It's like he is something we outgrow, like a child's plaything. A Gallup poll last  year showed that belief in God and the enemy is falling. But Jesus believed the devil existed, didn't He? He not only believed, HE KNEW THE DEVIL EXISTED. And He battled against the devil with what? God's Word, which is, in this verse, the Sword of the Spirit.

A soldier uses a sword not only to defend himself but also to expand his territory and 

to take over the enemy's position. So it is necessary not only to read and hear God's Word, but we should also know how to use it. The way Jesus wielded the Word of God was He had it with Him. It was in His heart. Imagine if Jesus was in the wilderness with Satan, “If you really are the Son of God, tell the stones to become bread!" (Matthew 4:3), and Jesus had to search the scriptures for His parry!!! That would be the same as a soldier going to battle without his sword, without his armor!

So let's try to put God's Word in our hearts, and again, trust in the promises of God: “Submit yourselves to God. Resist, stand against the devil, and he will flee from you." James 4:7

The Glory of God

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims His handiwork.” Psalm 19:2

Indeed when we look at the amazing images the Hubble telescope sends home, of galaxies, planets, nebulae, comets and asteroids, we cannot fail but sense there is a Creator God who made all of these with care. Even the simplest thing in our gift shops, a bookmark, has a designer and a maker. Its design will not come out with a random throw of a dice. If we jumble words, and pick it out of a hat, will we get a poem that people will read and marvel at? We need a poet to put words together. A watch, an electric fan, the Sagrada de Familia, all of these required a designer and a maker for them to exist. 

I am not a very intelligent person but I like listening to debates between atheists and Christian apologists even if I do not always understand what they say. The otherwise brilliant Stephen Hawking had to resort to absurdities to support his atheism. “If you like, you can call the laws of science ‘God’, but it wouldn’t be a personal God that you would meet and put questions to.” He also said, "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.” 

"I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science," Hawking, who died in March 2018, wrote. "If you accept, as I do, that the laws of nature are fixed, then it doesn't take long to ask: What role is there for God?"

"The universe itself, in all its mind-boggling vastness and complexity, could simply have popped into existence without violating the known laws of nature," he wrote.

A simple bookmark needs a designer and maker but the fine tuned Universe does not? How could that be possible by any stretch of the imagination?

Love is the Currency of Heaven

"...be patient, bearing with one another in love." Ephesians 4:2

To be a powerful, effective Christian, we just need to start with this reminder from Saint Paul to the Ephesians. "Be patient! Be forbearing." Carry one another's burdens. Listen to others with concern and empathy. Exhibit self-control in all situations. 

"You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working, and just so, you learn to love by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves." —St. Francis de Sales

Every day we are given opportunities to learn how to love more perfectly. We need to learn because love is the currency in heaven! 

You Are Precious

"That is why I kneel before the Father..." Ephesians 3:14

How immensely blessed the Ephesians were! Saint Paul prayed for them, knelt down before God for them. So that what? So that "the Father would bestow gifts upon them in keeping with the riches of His glory." This was Saint Paul's prayer, which we can also pray for ourselves and others: "May God strengthen you inwardly through the workings of His Spirit. May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith, and may charity be the root and foundation of your life. May you be able to grasp fully, the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ's love, and experience this love which surpasses all knowledge, so that you may attain to the fullness of God Himself."

What an important prayer this is, that we know, really know, deep in our being how God loves us, how He values us, how precious we are to Him. This is the very foundation of our life in Christ. And this is what the enemy seeks to destroy, our self image, the true knowledge of who we are. It is such a pity that sometimes we get bombarded with messages that we are not worthy, that we won't amount to much, that we are not enough. My sister used to tutor street children and she had to teach the parents first not to destroy the children's confidence by repeating again and again that they were “bobo”, not intelligent! The enemy finds all sorts of ways to deceive us about who we are. Let's go back to our Father's Word and reclaim our inheritance as God's precious sons and daughters! 

Unfathomable Riches

“To me, the least of all believers, was given the grace to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ...” Ephesians 3:8

Would we believe a man who did an about face from being a passionate enemy of Jesus and His disciples to being His most ardent follower? In the book of Ephesians we see why. Saint Paul says he was given a revelation into the mystery of Christ, a mystery hidden from ages past and now made available to us, as coheirs in the promised inheritance, the inscrutable, inexplicable, unfathomable, inexhaustible, infinite riches found in Him! St. Paul was willing to suffer, be plotted against, persecuted, imprisoned, and finally decapitated. His understanding and knowledge of Christ was so real, so all-encompassing, and so undeniable. 

Today this understanding and knowledge is available to us. We only have to read the Bible and pray that Jesus will reveal Himself to us. There are many stories of Jesus revealing Himself in dreams to many people. The parents of one young girl who was depressed and would cut herself in desperation approached a Youth for Christ staffer for help. The staffer prayed with the young girl and talked to her. “I will pray that Jesus will reveal Himself to you.” 

“I can’t do that,” the teenager protested, “God will strike me down for what I have been doing!” The YFC staffer convinced her not to be afraid. Two nights later, the teenager had a dream of a man who came to her. As He gently touched her where she had been cutting herself, she instantly was filled with joy and peace, and a sense of hope. He spoke to her and assured her of His love. 

Jesus actively seeks to call us to Himself. Let us approach Him with our whole hearts, eager to lay claim to all God has in store for us! 

Be Ready

“Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.” Luke 12: 35-36

My neighbor has a lot of horror stories about her house help. One helper would hide pasta and spaghetti sauce and other goodies in a balikbayan box hidden in their laundry area. It was covered with old bottles and other recyclables. Then when the box was full, one of her relatives would fetch the box in a taxi to bring home. Another helper, a cook, would tell all the other new helpers that my neighbors were super strict and would cook very little food for them until the other helpers would leave and she would have the house to herself. Later it was found out that she would bring home the extra food for her family. Then there were two helpers who spent so much time sleeping at the same time. Anyone who rang the door bell or knocked would have to wait a long time before they would hear and open up. 

In Luke 12, Jesus tells us that we are not to be like that, caught sleeping, or it will not go very well for us. He says we are to be ready for His coming at any time, even in the second or third watch. If He finds us alert, we will be blessed because He Himself shall wait on us at table. 

A few days ago, one of our staff had an asthma attack and passed away before she even reached the hospital. We never know when our invisible enemy will hit close to home. That is why we have to be ready at any time to go to our real home. Jesus tells us that if we have “girded our loins and lit our lamps” waiting for Him, He will lead us to a feast, a banquet table. 

We are Jesus’ friends but He also teaches us that we should learn to be servants. When God created us, He gave us a purpose, and He put that in our hearts. We also have a calling, and that’s what we have in our hands. If we want to be good stewards of what He has put in our hands, our gifts and talents, our resources, our time, we need to use it all to fulfill God’s purpose for us. 

Lord, may I be a good servant and use what I have in my hands to fulfill what You have put in my heart. 

Good Works

“For we are God's handiwork, His masterpiece, His workmanship, created anew in Jesus to do good works prepared for us in advance..." Ephesians 2:10

Some years ago, Pope Francis said something in one of his daily homilies that created a lot of controversy. Pope Francis usually said mass in St. Martha's House, where he lives, and he gives homilies like a regular priest, without a text to read from. From one of these homilies it was reported around the world that he said that atheists could get to heaven by their good works.

Reading from the transcript, it is apparent that the Pope did not mean this. He said that we all, even atheists, have the duty to do good. And perhaps, because we were created by a good God we have that inner urge, that drive, that need to do good.He said, “The root of this possibility of doing good – that we all have – is in creation." And the Pope went on to say that even non-believers "must. Not can: must! Because he has this commandment within him. . . the Lord has created us in His image and likeness, and has given us this commandment in the depths of our heart: do good and do not do evil”.

“And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing good."

And here is the statement that caused such an outcry, when the Pope imagined a dialogue: “But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!”

“But do good: we will meet one another there.”

"There" does not mean heaven, but an agreement, a path towards peace. 

Indeed, Jesus made an example of the good samaritan who was a neighbor to someone in need. We all have a purpose, we all have good works to do. We all need to make time, to use our talents and treasure to bless others!

If I Spare Them…

“Because of His affliction, He shall see the light in fullness of days; through His suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt He shall bear.” Isaiah 53:11

We all want to get to heaven, to dwell in the house of the Lord, don't we? It's beautiful there, glorious, love abounds! But the problem is, how can I, with all my sin, my selfishness, my irritability, my callousness, my carelessness with my speech and thoughts, ever belong there? How can I even get near a holy, sinless, righteous God?

Even if I stand on Mount Everest, the tallest mountain on earth, where I am nearest to the sun, I'm still terribly far from it! The difference is negligible. So even if I try my hardest to be good, all my effort, will not make me more ready for heaven!

It took Jesus, God's beloved Son, who became an abomination, who took our sins, became the sacrifice that satisfied the demands of a righteous God. My sins, my guilt, my shame, heaped upon Jesus' body, and it pleased God to crush Him, instead of me!

Here is a conversation John Flavel, an English Puritan Presbyterian minister, imagined God the Father and His Son had, before Jesus came down to save us. This is the Bargain of all Bargains!

The Father speaks. "My Son, here is a company of poor, miserable souls that have utterly undone themselves and now lay open to my justice. Justice demands satisfaction for them, or will satisfy itself in the eternal ruin of them." 

The Son responds. "Oh my Father. Such is My love and pity for them, that rather than they shall perish eternally I will be responsible for them as their guarantee. Bring in all Thy bills, that I may see what they owe Thee. Bring them all in, that there be no after-reckonings with them. At My hands shall Thou require it. I would rather choose to suffer the wrath that is theirs then they should suffer it. 

Upon me, my Father, upon me be all their debt." 

The Father responds. "But my Son, if Thou undertake for them, Thou must reckon to pay the last mite. Expect no abatement. Son, if I spare them... I will not spare You." 

The Son responds. "Content Father. Let it be so. Charge it all upon Me. I am able to discharge it. And though it prove a kind of undoing to me, though it impoverish all My riches, empty all My treasures... I am content to take it."

Thank You, Jesus, for bearing all my sin, my guilt and shame. 

The Eyes of Our Mind

“May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call holds for you, how rich is the glory of the heritage he offers among his holy people, and how extraordinarily great is the power that he has exercised for us believers; this accords with the strength of his power at work in Christ…” Ephesians 1:18-20

If the eyes of our mind are enlightened so we can see, really see, the hope we have in Jesus, how rich our inheritance that He offers us, there is no limit to what we can accomplish. We will surprise even ourselves. 

We have not heard the name of Antoinette Tuff but she is a real hero of the faith. On August 20, 2013, she was able to unarm Michael Hill, a 20 year old man holding an AK-47 assault rifle using words! Antoinette was a bookkeeper at the Ronald E. McNair Discover Learning Academy Elementary School in Decatur, Georgia. That day, there were more than 800 students and 100 employees in the school building.

When six shots suddenly broke, people panicked and fled. All except Antoinette. She prayed first, then stayed to talk with Michael. 

"What is your name?"

"I am Michael Hill."

"My name is Antoinette."

She saw how angry he was, how lost and in need of help.

"I know what it feels like to hurt, just like you are. I have a son with multiple disabilities. My husband of 33 years left me for someone else. But through it all, God carried me and brought healing to my heart. I know it's hard right now, but remember, there is still God who sits high and looks low. He cares for us all."

Michael listened to her quietly and after a moment of hesitation, he set the gun and bullet down on the counter beside him. Then, without a word, he lay down on the floor.

Antoinette then said "If it's alright with you, I'd like to walk outside with you, so they wouldn't shoot you. I want you to be safe." They slowly walked out together and Michael voluntarily surrendered to the police.

When asked how she managed to stop the gunman, Antoinette said, “I shared with him what God did for me during the hardest times in my life."

DeKalb County Police Chief Cedric Alexander told CNN, “You just don’t see that type of interaction in these types of situations very, very often at all. There are some things in life you can rehearse for,” he said. “But this is a woman who just kept her calm, kept her wits about herself, maintained her composure in this very dangerous situation.”

I think we can conclude that Antoinette lived her faith. That is why she showed strength and courage in this life or death situation!