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Discipleship and Karate

September 16, 2011 by 2 Comments

On our way home from dinner yesterday night, Pastor Noel shared this gem of wisdom about karate. The one thing I know about karate is that I don’t know anything about it. And that’s the reason why I was so struck with the parallels he drew about karate and ministry. Here’s the gist of that conversation:

In karate, the higher level of belt you have, the better person you become, the more gentle you are with the people around you and the more you treat everyone right. That’s because you have nothing to prove to anyone. You are secure with the level that you attained.

Whenever you see loud, aggressive and showy people, that’s most likely because they are just new, untrained, immature and has a lower belt level. They feel like they need to show off so people will recognize them.

The same thing with the ministry. The higher you go, the gentler you become. The more you do in the kingdom of God, the more it makes you a humble person. The bigger role you play in the ministry of God, the more you treat people right. Mature people don’t have anything to prove to anyone. They just are.

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Discipleship and Miss Universe

September 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Everything Shamcey worked for, everything she believed and thought about her whole life came out in the open the moment she stood in front of the international audience and the big cameras during the Miss Universe beauty pageant few days ago. Her beliefs, her convictions, her idea of life and religion and commitment were unveiled in that single moment.

I’m not sure if Shamcey will ever have that time in her life again when millions of people all over the world will hang on to every word she said. Her answer rocked, not just the entertainment and the fashion world, but the consciousness of Filipinos and the Christians who are confronted with the question Vivica A. Fox asked her: conviction or compromise? Here is a woman who unapologetically gave an unpopular answer in front of the whole world.

Few of us will ever have that moment when our faith and character will be tested out in the open, with cameras and millions of people to applaud us. Many will be tested in secret, without anyone watching the choices they make. Some are tested with a plate of food (Esau), others with a woman in a bathing suit (David), and still others with a few gold coins for extra cash (Judas). The real question, however, is not whether you are tested in public or in private. It is whether you will pass or not, whether you are ready to give an answer that will satisfy the Ultimate Judge or just please the crowd.

We are not all beauty queens, and for most of us, our test may not even involve carefully crafted sentences with the right kind of accent. For most people, the test is not about giving sharp answers to a panel of judges but making silent choices in the face of trials on their daily grind where most of the battles of life are either lost or won.

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Discipleship and Captain America

August 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I was talking to my victory group about the book of Ephesians tonight when another weird thought struck me: discipleship and Captain America. This is another one of the few weird ideas that came up in my devotional hour these past few days. In my previous post, I wrote about discipleship and nitrogen fixing bacteria. I have yet to write about thermodynamics when Captain America forced its way into my writing priorities.

You see, Ephesians 1.3 is still stuck in my head. I am literally blown away with the idea that before the world was ever created, God has already put into place every kind of spiritual blessing that I would ever need in this life. In verse 18, that idea is magnified a a few knots higher. Paul said that the “incredibly great power” of God is at work in the lives of those who believe. What does it mean?

It means that God’s power is in your life.

But that’s just the beginning. In verse 20, Paul said that the power you have in your life right now IS THE SAME power that God EXERTED to raise Jesus from the dead. Not only that, it is also THE SAME power that He used to put Jesus on the throne, high above all the powers and authority and dominion known to mankind.

When we think of it that way, it can sound so grand but so detached from human experience. But what if I tell you that the verses we read actually tell us that God has heavily invested so much in our lives that we can never afford to be defeated?

Like Captain America.

Contained within his buff body and strong physique is the millions of dollars of scientific research that would probably go to waste if Steve Rogers didn’t begin to use his abilities to win the war. Rogers had the enhanced body, he can do a lot more than what he was doing, he can be a deadly weapon, but what did he do at first? He worked as a clown!

Can you see the connection? The government invested all its scientific and financial resources on Rogers but he was living like a loser. Like so many Christians all over the world today. God put into place all the blessings they would ever need in this life and all the power of heaven is invested on them. Unfortunately, they live like clowns, downtrodden and defeated. They never really realize that they have within them the power to be victorious in Jesus.

In the movie, Captain America came to his senses and became the winner he was created to be. But that’s just Hollywood and pop culture. Your story is totally dependent on what you do now after reading this.

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Discipleship and Nitrogen Fixing Bacteria

August 13, 2011 by Leave a Comment

What does nitrogen fixing bacteria have anything to do with discipleship, or Christianity for that matter?

Blame it on my classmate, Leonard “Fessy” Fesalbon, for bringing this up while I was preparing for a discipleship meeting yesterday. In his post at our class FB group, he mentioned “roasted highland legumes” at the same exact moment I was reading Ephesians 1.3. And then pppfff, I saw the connection.

You see, in leguminous plants like soybeans and mongo, there is a kind of symbiotic bacteria that lives in their roots. They are the ones responsible for converting atmospheric nitrogen into nutrient form that would help plants grow. Without these bacteria, nitrogen would just float in the air and is pretty much useless to plants and the soil.

In Ephesians 1.3, Paul said that God the Father blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing IN CHRIST. See the connection yet? Blessings are floating in the air, God put them there before the foundations of the world, they are for us, and they are just waiting to be appropriated to our lives anytime. The only condition is we “break them down into usable form” by faith IN CHRIST.

EVERY spiritual blessing is there, floating, hovering over us. I bet that includes success, fruitfulness, peace of mind, love, relationships, money, family, studies, and everything else in between. (Victory group leaders, you can insert the blessings you need here.) Like nitrogen, they are available in the air. Like nitrogen, we don’t see them with our naked eye. Like nitrogen, they are waiting for the right conversion agent.

In Christ. That’s the operative word there. All these are for you IN CHRIST.

(Coming Up Next: The Law of Thermodynamics and the Interconvertibility of All Forms of Energy, all taken from Ephesians 1.)

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Discipleship Versus Multi-Level Marketing

August 5, 2011 by 4 Comments

And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. Gen. 2.2-3

Even if you’re new to the Bible, you’ll definitely notice the redundancy of the word “rest” in those two consecutive verses in Genesis. God rested on the seventh day… God blessed the seventh day because that’s the day He rested. Why such strong emphasis on rest? With the magnitude of the work He did, don’t you think God should be a little more busy by that time?

Pastor Joey Bonifacio once mentioned that part of the reason why God created man on the sixth day and rested on the next is that He wanted Adam to see Him relaxed and approachable right after he opened his eyes. He didn’t want Adam to see Him buried with a thousand inter-galactic chores the first day humanity was awakened to consciousness.

He wanted to sit back, enjoy His creation and make Himself available to man, to walk with him in the garden and enjoy an unhurried friendship with him. Not that He is not available on some other days but to show humanity that He is available for casual conversations and coffee breaks. To set an example to us that resting is actually part of the pattern of life; that amidst the busy lives of endless work to do, there is supposed to be a time to sit down and enjoy the company of the people you love.

When we do discipleship, let us not forget that a greater part of it is on building godly, unhurried friendships, not to form groups that look more like multi-level marketing schemes or ad hoc committees. We’ve seen this in church many times before. People meet in small groups, discuss the word and run out of the door as fast as they can. Their goal is for each member to form his own group and to repeat the process for rapid multiplication. It is only out of godly politeness that we don’t call these disciples our “spiritual downlines.”

Slow down. As Joey Bonifacio often say, “slow is fast.” This is not church marketing, this is not a signature campaign for Jesus, this is life and we are meant to enjoy this.

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