Trouble in Jerusalem

“It is good to wait patiently for the Lord to save us. When we are young, it is good to struggle hard and to sit silently alone, if this is what the Lord intends. Being rubbed in the dirt can teach us a lesson, we can learn from insults and hard knocks.”
- Lamentations 3:28a-30, Youth Bible (Contemporary English Version)

Right now, I am undergoing the biggest persecution that I have ever experienced in my entire life. It’s not like Stephen’s experience of being stoned to death, nor is it like China’s Brother Yun who seems to go out of prison only to be captured once again for evangelizing. It’s nothing like that. What I am going through right now is really way too close for comfort, because my burden is in my Jerusalem (for those who don’t seem to understand this, I urge you to read and reflect on Acts 1:8).

In truth, this struggle isn’t something new, but something that I have been going through almost since I was born. I thought it couldn’t get any worse than what it already was – not so much about me just accepting it as it is, but something I’ve already accepted, and continuously have been praying for. I didn’t know and expect that this would be where the persecution would be coming from.

I have made a really major decision in one aspect of my life – something that is potentially life-changing, no matter which way you look at it. It wasn’t the easiest choice that I have made. Heck, it took me several months to decide whether or not to go through with it, and the Lord has been consistent in telling me to do it. It was His will for me to be where I am right now, and the call was so strong that I was really ready to go – never mind if I was alone. I simply didn’t care, as long as it’s because it’s what He wants me to do, never mind if I might be supremely uncomfortable where He placed me; that’s where He led me, and that’s where I’m going. Thank God that He made it so that I wouldn’t be alone to go through it. What I didn’t count on was the reaction I’d be getting from my Jerusalem.

I’ve heard a lot of bad stuff said to me or to someone else in my lifetime, but what came out during that talk has got to be some of the most horrible things ever directed to me. Suffice to say that if my blood pressure were taken right after it, my systole would have been way over my diastole. I thought I was already used to that, but it turns out I wasn’t, and those things just cut to me. Not only were the stuff thrown insulting and unfair, but it was a truly perverted mind that could have turned and twisted something inherently good and made it appear so corrupt. That was the biggest persecution I have ever received. Neither my Judea nor Samaria have given me that brutal an attack. I would think that my Jerusalem would have provided my haven, but I was so wrong. The fact that it is my Jerusalem just makes it seem a thousand times worse than if it were Judea or Samaria, because that, I was able to take. This recent attack, however, just drove straight home, that I would have crumbled if not for Him. I know that He brought me here, and I know He has a purpose for this. At times, I have been extremely bullheaded about it, but I know and believe that it’s His Will for me to be here. I am secure in His Word. Unless He tells me otherwise, I will not do what is contrary to that.

The offense was really obviously coming from the enemy. I’ve said in my past entry that we are soldiers in a war. This means that the enemy has ammo of his own, and he will certainly make his attacks extremely painful, and he doesn’t feel constrained to break whatever rules we might think are applicable too. Ephesians 2:2 (and this is from the same version quoted above, as are the rest of the verses to be cited here, unless mentioned otherwise) says, “You followed the ways of this world and obeyed the devil. He rules the world, and his spirit has power over everyone who doesn’t obey God.” We shouldn’t underestimate him, because he is the ruler of the world, and he will use every means he can use to make us turn away from the Lord. When we think we are safe, that’s when we are in most danger of being attacked, because we get so complacent and filled with foolish pride that we are virtually very fertile ground for him to lay the seeds of corruption. It’s a very scary thought.

Yet the Lord did not leave us to be completely defenseless. We only have to read about the lives of these Biblical heroes to know that He provides for our battles. The Book of Psalms is filled with thanksgiving for the Lord has granted victory. The most powerful imagery that I have read about would be in the last chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, entitled “The Fight Against Evil.” It goes, “Let the mighty strength of the Lord make you strong. Put on all the armor that God gives, so you can defend yourself from the devil’s tricks. We are not fighting against humans. We are fighting against forces and authorities and against rulers of darkness and powers in the spiritual world. So put on all the armor that God gives. Then when the evil day comes, you will be able to defend yourself… Let the truth be like a belt around your waist, and let God’s justice protect you like armor. Your desire to tell the good news about peace shall be like shoes on your feet. Let your faith be like a shield, and you will be able to stop all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Let God’s saving power be like a helmet, and for a sword use God’s message that comes from the Spirit” (v. 10-17). Don’t be misled by what the enemy is saying, because our God has defeated already. His Blood covered us, and nothing will ever take that, unless we allow ourselves to be deceived and be victims of our circumstance – exactly where the devil wants us to be. God gave us His great promise that He will save us, and that has indeed come to fruition with Jesus Christ and by His Cross.

I won’t pretend that I wasn’t affected by what happened, because I was, big time. It hurt a lot. But to allow my thoughts to dwell on it would give the enemy have a grasp on me and start weaving his half-truths and full lies in my head, and that’s not something that I want. I’m praying to God to help me, and I know He will. Trials are in our lives like stones that we never notice until it is too late. Sooner or later, we will trip. If we just sit there mourning about that sin, we allow it to grow into proportion, because continually thinking about it will corrupt us. That is the truth. He will try to convince us that we will never have a chance again, that we’re completely useless, that we’re the biggest losers that the world could have come up with. That is not the truth. That is why we always should be steadfast in our faith and vigilant in our walk, to prepare us in our battles. That is why we should always read His Word, because the Bible is a major way for us to know what His commands are. If we trip, we should get up and continue the fight. We are soldiers, and God is our general. Are we going to be casualties of the war? Not better, if not worse: are we going to be deserters or turncoats of it?

Little Miss Perfect

One of the biggest (if not the biggest) insults thrown at me definitely has to be “Little Miss Perfect.” I have been called that, or some of its variations, a few times in my life, some disdainful and some in a sneering way, but they all brought out the same reaction from me: one degree short of fury. It’s vastly annoying to be called something that you’re not, even if the person who spoke of it meant it in a good way. I remember two distinct instances when this has been slapped to my face. A friend once called me that, and I ended up having a huge fight with him that lasted for several months. Another was said in good faith. I made some boo-boo which was laughingly pointed out by some other friend, to which another quipped, “Well what do you know? She’s not perfect after all.” Urgh. I wanted to scream, “Of course I’m not perfect! I’m human, for crying out loud!”

For starters, I am most definitely not perfect. I know who I am, and I know that I have so many imperfections. I honestly believe that there is more of me that has to be changed than there is to remain the same – if there is something in me that can be like that. I am a work in progress. I never made any claim to perfection, and I probably will not utter those words in my entire lifetime. If you hear me say them, call up the mental institution so as to get me admitted there, because it definitely means I have a problem up there. Like I said, I know who I am, and what I definitely am not is to be perfect. I take it against people who call me that, especially because it’s an insult to my God by comparing me – however mockingly to me– to Him. Only He is perfect. God alone. Not me, not you, not anybody who is human (except Jesus, but He’s fully human and fully divine at the same time).

It’s true that we try to emulate Jesus as Christians. As Galatians 2:20 says, “I live, no longer I but Christ who lives in me.” But our fall is almost always inevitable, because we’re humans, and being humans, we sin. There is no one who can claim to be sinless forasmuch as he remains human, because everyone sins. Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” All. The verse didn’t say, “Oh about twenty million have sinned, but the rest are A-OK.” No. All sinned. Checking out an earlier verse in the same chapter, it says “All have gone astray; all alike are worthless; there is not one who does good, not even one” (Rm 3:12). All of us have fallen short. If in the unlikely possibility that we haven’t sinned yet in our lives, it (sin, that is) will remain as an inherent possibility in our lives, because it’s in our nature, rooting back to the time Adam first fell in the Garden of Eden.

We are all tainted by sin, and no amount of good works, without Jesus, can attain our salvation. It is an insult to Jesus Christ if we claim that we alone can save ourselves, that our abilities are sufficient to grant us our freedom from sin. We claim that, and we might as well say that His sacrifice is worthless. If we could save ourselves, do you honestly think that He still would have died on the Cross for us? If there was any other way, would someone, even God, choose the hardest way just for the heck of it? No. He did it because it’s the ONLY way for us to be saved. We don’t deserve it, and He didn’t have to do it, but He still did. He could have allowed us to boil in our own fat, but He got the ladle and scooped us out. He died in our place, and that’s because of His love for us (Rm 5:8).

It’s all about Him. We are Christians because of Him. He is the One who called us to the Great Commission. He is our Lord, our Father, our Savior, our Redeemer, our Strength, our Refuge, our Worship, our everything. It’s all about God and never about us. How can we claim to be better than other people when our being does not lie upon ourselves but on Him (Eph 2:8-9)? How can we say that we are greater believers than other people can claim to be, when we believe in the same God (Ti 2:14)? How can we say that the way that we follow, the way that we live our lives is the only right path, when Jesus says He is the only way (Jn 14:6)? How can we say we are stronger in faith when He is the one who provides that strength (Phil 4:13)?

A trap we are in danger of falling into is that of self-righteousness. Our noses might be so high up in the air that we endanger scraping it on the ceiling. We think so highly of ourselves that we (1) forget that it’s not out of our own success that we are saved, but by His grace; and (2) commit sin by doing so. Philippians 2:3 says, “Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather humbly regard others as more important than yourselves.” Of course, it’s not false humility where we go, “Ok, I will see them as higher up than I am, but in the end, I get all the inheritance of heaven while they get nothing! Hah!” No. It’s not about doing it for the sake of getting something in return. Not only is that self-righteous, but selfish to boot. We do it not for whatever we might receive, but we do it because we love Him, plain and simple. It’s not about gratification. Isn’t His love enough? How greedy are we, wishing for something more when He gave us everything that He is already!

This brings the second danger we might fall into: the trap of believing what the world, what mankind teaches. The reason why we should always be steadfast in faith is because we might fall into this trap, and if we’re not wary and do not know better, we end up caught hook, line, and sinker. It’s easier to discern what the world teaches: all about gratifications of the flesh. What is harder is what man teaches. God uses men as His instruments to bring people closer to Him. However, there is the scary truth of modern-day false prophets. They say things that sound so true yet are totally false. What is scarier are those that are hugely true, but put in a dash of falsity in it, and it’s toxic. Deception is popularly known to be 99% true, 1% false. Scary thought, isn’t it? How will we know then? By listening to God, by remaining in Him. It’s not enough that we go through the Bible once and that’s it. It’s a daily commitment to be with God, and it’s also daily that we should be nourished by His Word and by His presence through prayer.

The truth is, we are in a state of war that has been going on since time everlasting. Another truth is, we can choose to be soldiers in that war, instead of remaining as unconcerned passerby. The truth is, we can’t be unconcerned passerby, not in this war, because one way or the other, we will be affected, and in ways whose proportions we can’t even imagine. We can’t remain in our own protected bunkers waiting for the bomb to hit us. Sure, damage to us won’t really be extensive, but we won’t really be able to do anything else either. What do we do then? We fight. We should also never forget that we are not alone in this battle. We are with Him, and we are also with His other children. That’s why we should always encourage and support each other (1 Th 5:11) instead of looking at each other with jealousy or whatever. And we do it not through what we can do, but what He can do through us. If it’s just us, we will surely fall. With Him, all things are possible (Mk 10:27).

Relevant Article

Got this article while browsing online, and I think it's pretty relevant to what we're talking about right now.:p I got this from (you guessed it) relevantmagazine.com.

Mimicking the Mainstream
by Tim Willard
“The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind,” historian Mark Noll keenly observed of the current state of evangelicalism (The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind). However, it was not always this way. Evangelicalism has become a juggernaut of sorts in the present age, but possibly at the expense of its mind. The sub-culture that is evangelicalism has successfully morphed into a dominant political combatant, as well as a multi-billion dollar publishing (multimedia) empire. One must ask the questions, however: have Christians sacrificed scholarship and intellect for relevance? Have Christians truly become anti-intellectual?

If to lead is to influence, what evidence is there that evangelicals lead out in culture with their excellence or with their spiritual acts of worship? Evangelicals put great importance on leading but instead of creating culture they are content to create a sub-culture, mimicking the mainstream.

J. Gresham Machen was a well-known Christian Scholar at Princeton at the turn of the 20th century. His words may be over one hundred years old, but they still ring true: “Christianity must pervade not merely all nations, but also all human thought… instead of obliterating the distinction between the Kingdom and the world, or on the other hand, withdrawing from the world into a sort of modernized intellectual monasticism, let us go forth joyfully, enthusiastically to make the world subject to God” (Christianity & Liberalism).

With mega-churches growing like Jack’s beanstalk, the new American mind-set of evangelism is, “Get’em into the church building, put on a good show, don’t offend them, give them some Starbucks, and BAM! They’ll get saved.” After all, we must be “all things to all men.” But what happens when we become everything to the world? Christians become everything and nothing.

What is the fruit produced from this faux-finished faith known as evangelicalism? We have huge churches catering to the lowest common denominators of culture. We have a lack of theological integrity because we don’t want to offend anyone with our doctrine. We have turned the body of Christ into something that feels and runs more like a corporation than an intimate community where families actually care about each other. We measure success like a business; if our numbers are growing then everything is good.

The only problem with this mindset is that discipleship cannot be measured in this way. Making a disciple of Christ takes time. It is hard. It is not something that takes place at a huge conference or outreach event. It is life on life.

The fruit of discipleship surfaces a few years down the line when those young people in the youth group have graduated and come back to the church not to be entertained but to plug into someone.

The church has forgotten what it means to equip the Christian mind. It is more concerned with putting on productions than putting out disciples. The end result is a bunch of whiney adults who don’t like the way the power-point presentation looked last week, or complain that the coffee bar needs to have more flavors to choose from. We have successfully dumbed down the Word of God. Intimacy with the Almighty is not something we strive for anymore. We scream “Relevance!” and sacrifice the minds Christ has given us.

I work with a group of young adults who are thirsty for an authentic Christian experience. They want to grow in their spiritual lives. They desire what Paul desired more than anything: to know God.

Relevance does not come from looking cool, a great church production, or using hip lingo. It comes from loving others. Wade Clark Roof of the University of California comments on the Gnostic experience and how it “celebrates experience rather than doctrine; the personal rather than the institutional; the mythic and dreamlike over the cognitive; people’s religion over official religion.” Has our faith morphed into something close to Gnosticism? Is it possible to find balance between the doctrine and experience?

The Christian culture tends to swing like the pendulum to one extreme, stay there for a while and then swing back to the other side. Do I believe we need to have experience in our faith journeys? Yes. Do we need to be more people oriented and less self-serving? Absolutely! However, I think the Church takes its cues from culture rather than creating culture. Our faith demands our hearts and our minds.

The Christian landscape heaves with shallow people, content to live out their faith in the plush sanctuaries of the American church. We are training young Christians not to think about God or reflect on His glory. I have been told on more than one occasion to teach or write in a way that does not threaten someone’s mind (bring the cookies down to the bottom shelf). The interesting thing is when I took a survey of high school seniors who sat in our group discussions they loved the fact that I did not teach down to them. They loved being challenged in their minds and hearts. They said they were tired of the hollowness of their faith. We are hollow Christians. The deep well of intimacy with God is missing from our faith.

Brothers and sisters, look around you. The Christian life is deeper than your iPod play list, it is more intense than Gran Turismo, and it is more than somebody’s idea of saving the world. At some point we will realize that our culture is looking for leaders not mimickers. It is time to create culture... heart, soul, and mind.

Red, White, and Blue

Just found out my sister (my real dichie) got accepted in the U.S. Navy, and she didn't just pass the exam - she aced it. She was the 9th highest for those who took the Navy exam, and the 15th overall (all the applicants for all the forces - Navy, Army, Air Force - had to take the exam at the same time, from what I know). Looks like it's really His plan for her to be there - we actually teased her that she will be used as a nuclear warhead in battle, as she can be a lethal weapon at times (believe me, I know from experience :p).

Anyhow, her being accepted just means one step closer for me migrating to the U.S. of A. - a country that is just not my favorite (to find out the reason, message me. I certainly won't go and blab it all out to have myself shot by them!) A part of me is actually happy with that - a new life, a new beginning, and letting go of a lot of stuff and starting anew. A huge chunk of me is actually pretty ecstatic, considering that my health will have a better chance of improving rather than staying here (yes, I'm sick again. My throat feels like sandpaper went by it a hundred times). However, there's also this part of me that's a bit reluctant to take that step and go for a huge change in my life, because what may happen is just so unpredictable. Almost certainly, I won't be able to continue on with law school (if we really do migrate, it would probably be 2-3 years from now) because of the age thing again. They might ask me to take another degree again, for that matter. While I will be with some of the people I love most in the world, I would not have the people I love spending time with - physically, at least. If we leave, I don't even know if I'm coming back here again. For all my "save the country" talks, a part of me would actually be relieved leaving it; I'm not a hypocrite, and neither am I a nationalist, as I said before. Don't get me wrong: I still maintain that stand, to do our bit to save the Philippines, but I'm not saying to go and wield the Philippine flag whenever and wherever you can.

It's funny. I go about here talking as though our migrating is a sure thing already, when it's not. Whatever His Will for me, however, I would accept it, in all aspects of my life.

Lament

Peaceful silence transforms into soundless screams
Inner peace melds with chaos and confusion
When will this end?

Violence upon violence
Man against man
When will this end?

Silent battles raging, internal and external
Not knowing who is friend and who is foe
When will this end?

Betrayals left and right
Unfading anger
When will this end?

When will this end?