A Royal Scandal of Grace

Today in our early morning devotion we read and meditated on the first two chapters of the book of Ephesians. Just want to share some of the personal insights I learned from them.

Grace versus Moral Law and works

One of the critical issues in the bible that seekers like myself continue to be fascinated about is the argument of grace and works, whether Christian salvation results from the law and good works or by absolute grace. Conflicting arguments regarding this issue actually offers more intrigue than answers. But Ephesians 2:8-9 gives a resounding clarification and admonition: it is by grace alone through the working of faith which result to salvation; not works or by the operation of the law. Jesus' last words on the cross hammered in the last nail to this deadlock by publicly declaring "it is finished". 

The redemptive work of Christ on the cross and His blood which is offered as ransom, have broken the shackles of the law and liberated the people through the dispensation of God's grace.

Grace redefined

For some people, the idea of "only by grace" is rather absurd because it might make people complacent about their position in God by invoking this grace theology; abstaining from good works because as the bible says, “it is not by works”. But it must not be viewed as such. Good works does not produce righteousness and therefore leads to salvation; rather good works result from salvation we obtained from grace.

Christ’s solution defies conventional and mathematical logic. It is not Grace + Faith + Good Works = Salvation. It is Grace + Faith = Salvation = Good Works. If a person is truly saved, it will result to good works…it will result to a changed life. Salvation is not bought with our good works; Christ did that for us once and for all by giving Himself as an offering—“so that no one can boast”.

Faith with benefits

 But it doesn’t simply end there. Our salvation in Christ is not only a one time experience but a constant and daily journey—with an assured victory in the end. The Christian journey does not promise itself to be easy. Like other journeys, there will be obstacles along the way. But we are not without help. Our help comes from the Lord. Our victory has been won!

There are two words that I underscored in Ephesians chapters 1 and 2: Access and Inheritance. These two words for me characterize the exciting life in Christ.

Access: Through the redemptive work of Christ, the walls that separated us from God was torn-down (Ephesians 2:14). We are therefore brought back into God’s Kingdom, as citizens and children of the King. Through our faith in Jesus we became God’s children—that’s why the bible taught us to pray “our Father”. We were given full access as citizens of the Kingdom, with full privileges and titles.

Inheritance: As God’s children, we have an inheritance: eternal life that has been given freely to those who believe. We are partakers of a treasure that this world may never fully come to grasp. Through God’s grace we have been made “to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6). This is too incomprehensible even for me, but God’s love leads me to believe that this is all possible. And I am more than amazed!

******

Grace, what have You done?

Murdered for me on that cross

Accused in absence of wrong

My sin washed away in Your blood

Too much to make sense of it all

I know that Your love breaks my fall

The scandal of grace, You died in my place

So my soul will live

Oh to be like You

Give all I have just to know You

Jesus, there's no one besides You

Forever the hope in my heart

Death, where is your sting?

Your power is as dead as my sin

The cross has taught me to live

And mercy, my heart now to sing

The day and its trouble shall come

I know that Your strength is enough

The scandal of grace, You died in my place

So my soul will live

Oh to be like You

Give all I have just to know You

Jesus, there's no one besides You

Forever the hope in my heart

And it's all, because of You, Jesus

It's all, because of You, Jesus

It's all, because of Your love

And my soul will live

-Scandal of Grace, Hillsong United-

The Only Thing That Matters

It was Thursday last week and having been caught by flu because of the erratic weather that I decided to leave the university and go home to my province. I thought to myself that it won’t be too much of a crime to leave my paper works (piles of them) in CLSU and relax a little. Besides, I badly need to unwind. Never been home in a long time. And I totally missed the gang at home; especially the kids—my 4-months old nephew and 2-months old cousin.

Well, home for me is a great place to retreat and to re-evaluate realities. Pondering my life within the back-draft of family gives me a clearer picture of what should it be like; of what I’m missing out; of what necessary steps I must take to get there. And indeed, there’s no other effective motivation for “getting there” than family pressure: gentle and compelling. I love my family:)

Though our family (or “the gang” as I fondly call them) is expanding with the recent addition of two new babies in the house, I cannot help but notice that something is lacking in the picture. The house felt a little empty these days. Perhaps I just missed the days when we were still complete; those times when my other aunt’s family were still within our family compound (I think one of the biggest in the area) and we still share the same house which we may consider as our ancestral house—our axis; the center which holds our family together. Perhaps it has lost some cheerfulness and innocent rumblings that has filled the house when my younger cousins were still there, that is before they totally move in to their house in Pampanga. And how it feels significantly different without my little cousins’ childish intrusions to my private reverie! Just when I exactly needed distractions especially on times like these.

Okay, so what’s the crux of this highly personal and melancholic rant? I seem to mature slowly—oh yeah that’s the crux! But I honestly feel secure and absolutely comfortable when my family is around. It seems that five years of studying in college and three years of teaching in which I am forced to be away from my family—I have not yet fully acquired the necessary strength to go beyond my comfort zones. I am still at a constant loss for strength when it comes to change. My deep aversion to sudden transition which puts me off-guard has been a weakness I’m trying to overcome.

It is just that moving on is an element of life that I have yet to master. Let’s just say for now that I am still freaked out by changes—and that, moving on—although I have already been accepting a lot of changes in my life for the last eight years since I studied and taught in college. Some of them actually were painful and staggeringly unbearable to accept, but looking back, I did come through them—or still in the process of coming through them. And I’ve decided for myself that I would move on and come out stronger and better person despite the odds and complications in my life.

I admire those people who do not flinch with the slightest thought of change. It’s as if I am the only one who is afraid of the reality of time and space. What happened to my logic was just as bewildering to me as my confusion to determine reality from illusion, or truth from fiction. Maybe I am just too careless and unconscious of my own existence that’s why things do not seem to make sense at all.

Isn’t it funny how I’m able to pinpoint my own mistakes and weaknesses and every other things that strangle me, yet I can not find the guts to release myself so that I may breathe? I know my shortcomings and where my misgivings are, but it tortures me to get rid of them completely.

I have already tried to leave behind what were unnecessary to my existence, and even though I know they still lurk somewhere near, waiting for my attention, I will never return to them. Perhaps it would be hard for me in the long run to leave some things that already defined my being—but it’s worth the shot. It’s not with these things that will define me, or my future, or yeah, my destiny.

And I don’t want these unnecessary things to take over the life in me.

The warrior in me will overcome. That's the only thing that will matter in the end.

Dancing Crystals

(Throwback. Poem dated June 2006. And all because it's raining the whole day today and I'm stuck in the house. Cheers!)


I open my hands
          trembling on every beat
      getting numb on every swing
             of the cold and bewildering
            dancing crystals
                that were sent from the heavens
      to wash away the dirt
               and brokenness and hurt
                        from this abandoned soul...

       I stand still
my feet firm on the ground
               felt the stern soil
                     becomes soft and muddy
            I struggled to face
      the darkened skies
                        billowing clouds above...

My eyes feel the pain
        yet fell on a trance
            deep and profound
                        that I can't resist...

I close my eyes
       internalized the beat
        and I let my tired heart
    succumb to the rhythm
                 and dance in the rain...

Damned Fairytale

It’s the same old, stinking story.

And no doubt it will go on and on in this country which is already fraught with disillusion, chiefly perpetrated by those false prophets who persist on existing in the government and in the sorry state of Philippine politics—without shame.

They will keep on telling their blasphemous stories to every corner of this pitiable archipelago, unrestrained by their feral thirst for power and wealth and self-preservation. And then the helpless Filipino people will fall prey and again be dazzled by the image these pretentious, self-made redeemers try to pose in front of the camera, devouring every little opportunity to appear decent around the media hype on which they build their eccentric ambitions and political dreams.

There’s just so much apathy and indifference in the country that already made people to lose the remaining shred of hope to come through. There are so many crises that continue to paralyze the society and it seems that there’s no one here who is capable of making sense out of this social ills. It seems that everyone in the government only exist for their own interest and self-aggrandizement.

Of course, politics in this side of the universe lacks the very fundamental element that defines the word, more so on its purpose for existence. It lacks the noble notion that government must be by the people and from the people and for the people. It sorely shames the grand idea that a public office is a public trust. How shameful have we become as a people!

It’s just natural to feel the rage with what is happening recently in the Philippine politics. The multi-billion peso Pork Barrel Scam which is allegedly perpetrated by a certain Janet Lim-Napoles using bogus Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) that served as conduits for government funds was a shocking revelation. What is more shocking however, what is more epically shocking is that our honorable members of the Congress—our respected Senators and House Representatives of the republic—claim that they do not know anything about it. When the issue was brought into the public light, none of these honorable congressmen really seem to have the slightest idea of what happened with their very own Pork Barrel; no one really seem to be accountable. 

Everyone denied involvement. Everyone just had amnesia. That is epic.

And Janet Lim-Napoles was left on her own to weave an epic tale of lies and disgusting fairytale; and then she went into hiding. And then the government embarked into a mission now notoriously known as the greatest manhunt in these turbulent times—pursuing her not because of misuse of billions of government funds but by illegally detaining a prospective witness to the scam. One may ask, what the hell is that? That is government idiocy in epic proportions.

With that, the honorable members of the Congress especially those who were involved in the scam were given a chance to lick their own wounds in public, and were quick to favor the abolition of the Pork Barrel system (perhaps the main reason why they keep on running for political positions), when waves of public sentiments began pounding the government. Just like that, the villains masqueraded themselves as one with the people in this noble cause; just like that—like changing of clothes or clicking the switch—the honorable congressmen made themselves untouchable. But for how long?

The people are already used to this kind of maneuvers; and they are already thinking.

The initiative of the people yesterday in Luneta Park, on a day which commemorates the noble heroes of this nation, on a place where the country’s most brilliant mind in the person of Dr. Jose Rizal is enshrined, is no less than symbolic of the Filipino’s outrage against our plight. It solidifies our resolve to see a clean and effective government. It signifies our intention to make this nation break through. And it sends signals to those villains, to those who try to steal from the people; to those who ignore our rights…that power belongs to the people. And that the people are watching them with their eyes… and with their clenched fists and firm voices, they will shake this nation. They will redeem this nation.

Like warriors in fairy tales; like real heroes of their country of birth…they will unsheathe their swords of noble ideals and slay the witches and dragons.

And this epic tale will be told for generations, in kingdoms far away…

(Google image)

What the Mirage Taught Me

There’s one interesting thing about mirage that I am most fascinated about. It is that they tricked you of being real and of being there, yet after approaching it to have a closer look, they suddenly fade away. And just like that, they disappear and gone forever. Makes you wonder what they are and where they are going.

Well, life sometimes is like that. You come to a point where you just realize that some things in life are only there temporarily. Little objects or some phenomena that are transitory, slowly fading away like a haze or a wisp. In a blink of an eye or in a heartbeat, they are gone forever.

Ephemeral. 

Life itself is like that—ephemeral. Philosophers call it existential. Pragmatics has an aversion to its inevitability. The bible renders this matter-of-fact: it is just a passing breath; a flower that quickly fades. This is all liberating when one internalizes its profound meaning. And I am at a constant loss for meaning when faced with such lofty ideas.

All I know is this: I don’t want my life to be a mirage. I don’t want the world or people to say, “Is it really there, or is it not?” I will honor my existence in this life—no matter how transitory it really is—by making the world realize that I was here.

And as one nugget of wisdom says: I am but a speck in the vastness, but I am here to make a dent in this universe.

Love and Distance

Earlier as I was preparing my usual morning regimen of hot coffee with a lot of creamer and sugar, I overheard my aunt on my paternal side and her husband having a light conversation together with their 2-months old baby, Precious Jirah. I heard tito was playing childishly with his daughter, prompting the little baby to converse with him, or hoping to just make some baby sounds. Jirah seem to ignore whatever is going on around her innocent world. This scene of a happy family enjoying the early morning hours went on for few more minutes.

And this all happened in front of a laptop computer... over this internet communication tool called Skype.

My aunt's husband, Totie, is an OFW in the Middle East. After they were married last year, tito went on to work for their future abroad. Typical Filipino reality, if I may say. I personally know many people who are under this reality--this is all too familiar. And yet for me, it is still too confounding and a little too disturbing. It all the more becomes discomforting and absurd when you think of the reason about why people leave families and relatives behind to work abroad. Do they really want to go abroad and leave sons and daughters in the first place? Or are they just forced to, because of necessity, because of the need to, because of the inability of this government to provide decent work that will provide decent salary and not just to subsist? Okay, it's just my rants. But no apologies.

Looking at my aunt's family...looking at their young daughter--I think about her future and how money from abroad will help build it. And I take consolation in that. Maybe, that would suffice. Maybe for people who leave behind families, they take comfort in that thought. And they went on to defy distance because of love.

Me? Haaayy, man I hate distance.

Baby's Day Out:)

I left the university yesterday and went home just to play with these little kiddos and to draw strength from them. Arkin Ianjay, my nephew, now turning 5-months old, and Princess Jirah, my cousin, going 3-months old, are the two most recent addition to our big, happy family. These two cute and cuddly little bundles of fun constantly make me look forward to a homecoming.

What fascinates me most about babies is the quiet confidence (and faith) they possess. They are not bothered nor terrified. They know someone is constantly looking-out for them, taking care of them. No wonder God wants us to have this child-like faith and child-like wonder and innocence. I mean child-like, not childish. Haha. Magkaiba yun noh! 

In a child-like wonder, we should be reminded that Someone out there is constantly looking-out for us, caring for us, and unfailingly loving us...despite and in spite of us.

I am a child in awe of You, my Abba Father 

:

:

"Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants, You have ordained strength..."

-Psalm 8:2