Author: Jojo Agot

Pastor at Victory. Faculty and adviser at Every Nation Leadership Institute (ENLI). MA in Theology and Mission at Every Nation Seminary.

Sun Stand Still Quotes

Whether your vision is met with cheers or jeers, outside opinion cannot be your sustenance. Man cannot live by bread alone, and he certainly can’t survive on a steady diet of attaboys. He who lives by the approval of others will die by the absence of the same.

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A high calling often exacts a high price. But it always yields an astronomical return. When God comes toward you with the flint knife, remember that he’s not out to hurt you. He’s aligning your desires with his desires so that he can accomplish the impossible in your life.

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Not an Opium

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” John 20: 27- 28

For those who think that the Christian faith is mere spirituality that doesn’t touch the realities of our daily grind, this verse is a dare. A dare for you to experience God with your senses. A dare for you to find truth in the natural world.

Christianity is not the sentimental feeling you get when you walk inside a church building with high ceilings and cold pews. It’s not the emotional rush you get when you watch a breath-taking sunset or when you look at the innocence of a newborn baby. It is not an opium to sedate you through life.

Christianity is real stuff in a real world. It collides with fear and hatred. It clashes with immorality and shame. It destroys anger and teaches grace to forgive a wayward son, a convicted criminal, or a town prostitute.

Psalms 34: 8 encourages us to “taste and see that the Lord is good…” David was not just being poetic. He was describing the fact that God is indeed good and his goodness is felt in our lived experiences.

There’s Always a Trade-Off

Steven Furtick, Sun Stand Still:

There’s always a trade-off. Before God can bring his promises to pass in your life, he has to strip away all the stuff that keeps you from trusting him wholeheartedly. And that stuff is on the inside. God’s invisible work in you prepares you for his visible works through you.

Certain components of spiritual success are easy to see. These are the tangible, public, and obvious victories that inspire you to admire well-loved heroes. But the training ground for those victories is the stuff you can’t see. Crossing over into God’s promise is always accompanied by a cutting-away process. And once you’ve crossed over the Jordan by embracing your [God-given] vision, there are some intense internal challenges waiting for you on the other side.

I don’t know exactly what this cutting-away process will look like for you. God has a personalized calling for your life, so the sacrifices he calls you to make will be specific and unique. All sorts of variables play into this. The things that God will call you to lay down or walk away from will depend a lot on where you’ve come from and where he’s taking you. And only he knows that.

God may have to cut away some of your self-centered dreams to make room for his bigger and better dreams. Maybe the desires of your heart are wrapped in ambition for status instead of passion for Jesus.

God has scheduled me for open heart surgery on many occasions to deal with my distorted priorities and superficial motives. At times, he’s graciously allowed me to get my heart right by inspiring me to humble myself through fasting, prayer and repentance. But other times, he chooses to strip away the ego and pride in my life through more drastic measures.

The thing is, sometimes God has to let your dream die so that his vision for you can come alive.

Set the Foxes On Fire

I know it’s almost 3am, I’m too sleepy but there’s just something about IGNITE 2011 that I can’t shake off my head. I am talking about the upcoming Lifebox Campus Conference in Manila on May 26 this year. And I’m also talking about setting 300 foxes on fire. Crazy idea, huh. Let me explain:

In Judges 15, there is this weird story where Samson caught 300 foxes, tied them tail to tail in pairs, set them literally on fire and let them loose on the fields of the Philistines. The fields caught fire and in just a few minutes, the Philistines’ source of food and military strength were nothing but black ashes on the ground.

Smart move. Bold move. Unprecedented move. Weird move. Crazy move. But no one can argue that it was totally effective. Samson was picking a fight with the Philistines on purpose so God can bring down his judgment on the people who oppressed Israel. But of course, that has nothing to do with IGNITE 2011, right?

Wrong. What if it is possible to invade the enemy’s camp and burn it down to ashes faster than usual? Sounds like a good idea? Yup, definitely. How? By following Samson’s crazy strategy. Catch foxes, tie them tail to tail, set them on fire, and let them go.

Did you catch that? Let’s do it again: Engage them, establish them in the faith, equip them, and empower them to go! Seriously, I think I’m just making this up and the analogy is a little forced. But let me get to my main point: Let’s help our students catch fire so they can run with the vision and turn this nation around for Jesus.

In plain English, what I’m really saying is that, hey, singles, young professionals, and working people, can we please help our students pay for their registration for Lifebox Ignite 2011? They say it only takes one spark to start a fire. Let’s help them make it happen for their generation too.

Yun lang, thank you!

In Memoriam

January 24, 2004.

Exactly seven years today, my father died on that grim Saturday morning after more than two years of battle against colon cancer. It was a long, painful battle. Nature won. My father was taken away from us at the age of…

Actually we have no idea.

As embarrassing as it is, no one in the family knew when he was born, not even my mother. According to the snippets that I gathered from listening to their drunken stories when I was a kid, my father, the late Eladio O. Agot Sr., was born before World War 2. He was one of those who ran around and hid in the forests when Japanese soldiers rounded up the locals in their neighborhood. He was about ten years old at that time.

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