Everything New

 Jesus resurrected and death lost its power! He lives to bring God’s glory to all who believe. 

In the same way, after our death on earth, we can look forward to a new life without end! 

John wrote in Revelation 21:1-7 (ESV): 

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 

"And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.' 

"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

"And he who was seated on the throne said,  'Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.' 

"And he said to me,  'It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.' 

"'The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.'” 

Lord Jesus, thank you for making everything new for undeserving me. Amen. 

Happy Resurrection Day! 

GUEST BLOG: Tetelestai

(This message on the 6th Word yesterday, Good Friday, by son #3, is my second guest post in 17 years.  Although not as short as my posts, it is too short by speaking standards, because it does not preach; it powerfully synthesizes what scholars have posited for centuries about his faith. I have taken the liberty of shortening it further.) 

“So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished!’ And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.” (John 19:30 NKJV)

When Christ said, “It is finished”, it showed that He had already fulfilled everything that was prophesied in the Bible about the Messiah. God's great plan for our redemption, which unfolded over a span of thousands of years, was now complete. Jesus took the punishment we deserve and offered us His righteousness. Both the judgment and payment of sin were done on the cross.

“It is finished" is the translation of the Greek word Tetelestai, a word from the verb teleo, meaning “to bring to an end, to complete, to accomplish.” 

It's the word you would use, for example, when you pay off your house mortgage or cross the finish line in a marathon--end of a course of action! Receipts in ancient texts were sometimes introduced by an abbreviated version of this word, signifying the debt is paid in full.

Also, Tetelestai is in the perfect tense in Greek. It speaks of an action which had been completed in the past but with results that continue into the present. Tetelestai thus adds the idea that "This happened and it is still in effect today." So when Jesus cried out "It is finished," it means that "It was finished in the past, it is still finished in the present, and it will remain finished in the future."

Jesus completely paid the price needed to satisfy the judgment that sin requires. There is nothing we can add to the finished work of Jesus. There is no amount of good work can pay the price for our redemption. Christ already did that when He died on the cross. 

"It finished.” Jesus left no unfinished business behind. This was a cry of victory. Jesus had a purpose and a mission to complete. On the cross, He had done everything He came to earth to do.

In the Old Testament, the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies where he poured the blood of an unblemished lamb on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. The moment that blood touched the mercy seat, atonement was made for the people’s sins for one more year. This was done year after year to obtain the temporary forgiveness for sin. 

“It is finished!” Jesus was declaring the end of sacrifice because the ultimate Sacrifice had finally been made. Atonement was completed, perfected, and fully accomplished. It was done once and for all – finished forever.

He paid the price for our salvation, for our freedom, for our healing, and for our restoration. When He died, God’s justice had been fulfilled. His words also remind us to share the Good News to others. There are multitudes of all over the world who believe they can earn or buy their way into heaven. Paul wrote to the believers in Ephesus: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” 

Think about it. If every debt you personally owed to others was suddenly paid off, how would you act and feel? 

Now Jesus paid in full your debt to sin. Salvation is God’s gift to us. Doesn’t that make you want to thank Him for what He has done for you? Brothers and sisters, Jesus won the greatest victory in history, let our hearts be filled with unending praise!

Guest blogger: Atty. Juan Ruffo D. Chong 

“My God, My God . . .”

Good Friday, 2024. This afternoon, at 3 PM, we will begin our worship service in church to look back on the crucifixion and Jesus’ seven last words. 

I was assigned by our pastor to speak on the 3rd word, “Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani,” translated to English as, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” 

Exactly 17 years ago, I spoke about the same, as written in Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34, and Psalm 22:1. 

No matter how I go around the words or how much research I do (reading studies by Bible scholars back and forth), I end up on the same page—the truth. 

What I said 17 years ago remains unchanged.   

The only change I see around me is the art of rendering by talented artists, like this awesome one by my friend Tom Yboa. (He posted it early this morning and it gave birth to this blog.) 

I can’t help but marvel at his lines, colors, and textures. They are different from those of other art pieces then and now, but for me, the essence that I speak about is encapsulated in this one magnum opus:  

My Savior, the Author of life, Who knew it all, Who had it all, gave it all up so I may be free from the slavery of sin. 

Lord Jesus, thank you for your bottomless grace. Amen. 

Holy Week: Is PINK Your Favorite Color?

That is a question readers often ask me. It is something expected, because every Wednesday, my post on social media is about PINK. 

This started during the political campaign when supporters of Atty. Leni Robredo posted every Wednesday something PINK, her campaign color.

I believed then (and now) that PINK is a color of hope. Hope has not left me even after she lost the election. 

And so PINK Wednesday it will always be—beyond politics. My PINK posts now focus on deeper knowledge about creation and creativity. Looking for PINK in nature and in humanity, then learning more about them, has actually deepened my supreme awe of our Creator whose out-of-this-world ideas are more than amazing. 

And sometimes, I also post PINK ideas of men with God-given talents. 

I had forgotten that my very first PINK Blog was written in the year 2007–17 years ago! It was about my friend Sylvia, whom I have not seen for years, and her love affair with the color PINK.

ooo

Today, Holy Wednesday, I posted this on social media.                    

"For some reason, this beautiful PINK flower dramatizes, for me, the events solemnized in all of Christendom this Holy Week. 

The stem bends and stays bowed down, like the mood during the crucifixion on Good Friday. Then after pollination, the stooped stem slowly turns upright (middle photo) into feathery heads, wafting away from the plant—and disappearing with the wind. It is Easter (last photo), Resurrection Day! 

"This PINK Prairie Smoke (Geum triflorum) at end point looks ethereal, and vanishes from our sight. The same way that Holy Week leads to the celebration of Easter Sunday, when death is conquered and new life is given to all who believe." 

This PINK Wednesday, may we slow down, pause, and reflect on hope, rooted in His grace.    

Are you an Investor?

Investment vehicles such as stocks, certificates of deposit, or bonds, offer ROI (Return on Investment), making our money grow and build wealth over time.    

Christians believe that all our money are from God and God’s. Money is not ours, we are simply stewards of it. Good stewards, therefore, must invest God’s finances so we can show ROI for it.   

Jesus clearly paints this for us in Matthew 25:14-28: 

The kingdom of heaven is likened to a man taking a long trip. He entrusted his money  to his three servants in proportion to their abilities. To one, he gave five bags of silver; to another, two bags; and to the last, one bag.  

“The servant who received the five bags of silver began to invest the money and earned five more. The servant with two bags of silver also went to work and earned two more. But the servant who received the one bag of silver dug a hole in the ground and hid the master’s money.” (verses 16-18 NLT)

When the master returned and listened to his servants’ reports, he rejoiced with the two servants who doubled his money. But to the servant given only one bag, the master was angry—the least he could have done was to deposit it in the bank to earn interest! The master then took away the one bag from this servant and gave it to the one with the ten bags. 

This parable is not all about money. 

It is about the gifts the Lord entrusts to us. Just as Jesus gives money according to individual abilities in this parable, He also makes us stewards of everything He owns in proportion to our talents. Some talents can be seen by what people do with their physical bodies, while others are seen in one's mental capacities. 

In Ephesians 4:11-12 (NLT), God gave His children different gifts to use for His work. “Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.  He appointed some apostles, others prophets, others evangelists, others preachers and still others teachers.”  

Whatever talents given us by His grace need to be invested so we can produce ROI, or concrete results, not for ourselves but to honor our Master. 

Layogenic

As of 2023, more than 1,000 new and revised words, phrases, senses, including words or English words with Filipino meanings have been included in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The slang “layogenic” may make it to the OED soon.  

Layogenic (described as a person who is attractive from a distance, but not on close up) was recently spotlighted by BBC Two, the second flagship channel of the United Kingdom’s British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), as word of the day. Trust Pinoy creativity to come up with Layo (far) and genic (photogenic).  

This word evokes images of our wondrous God in His beautiful Kingdom far away from us. 

But God Himself debunks this in Scripture. Jesus might have gone back to heaven, but He left His Holy Spirit to indwell, or take residence, in the body of every believer. He is not just near us—He is with us and in us, and brings about life-changing results.

The Holy Spirit confirms to us that we are heirs of the Lord and fellow heirs with Christ (Romans 8:8-10):  

“. . . those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.  But . . . you are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. [And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.] And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God.”  

How wonderful to live forever in faraway heaven, but how amazing to know that the King Who rules that place is residing in our heart today! 

When sometimes we forget that God is indwelling in our heart, may His guiding grace nudge us to remember.

Creating Committees

Flashback: There were 73 children at the youth group’s outreach program, under the leadership of Teacher Ana. The event, scheduled for 3 PM, included singing, story telling, a message about Jesus, and eating. 

All the children were on time. Ana, on the other hand, was still busy with the food and physical arrangements. Then the young people started to trickle in. But instead of helping Ana, they were on their phones. 

A church elder who dropped by observed what was happening and called Ana to a meeting with the other elders the next day.     

“Nobody volunteered to help!” complained Ana.   

“Did you form committees? asked one elder.  

Ana insisted, “It was they who prepared the program.”   

"Did they know who was to do what?”  

On a larger scale, this happened to Moses in the wilderness with the Jews whom God brought out of Egypt. (Numbers 11:14-17 ESV)   

Moses complained to God, "I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me.  If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness.

"Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Gather for me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you. And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone.'" 

Art by Jacob de Wit 1739

In our modern language, this means, "Delegate; create committees. People should be assigned particular jobs to focus on so they can do them efficiently and properly."  

    

The Lord’s work has to be communal. We need to assign brethren to do specific responsibilities, so they, too, may find joy and fulfillment.  Had Ana done this, the work would have been carried out joyfully and successfully with the help of others.  

Today: I tear up every time I see faith brethren in our church—each working hard in his/her own way—using God-given gifts and resources to serve the Lord. At no time have I seen this kind of energetic volunteerism from all quarters in all our ministries. In these last days, thank you, Lord, for equipping your children for commual work. We cannot do it without your grace.  

My Salad Days

Those days are over—for a long time now. As Shakespeare meant the phrase to be, those were when I was ”green in judgment.” 

This is not ro brag, but as an elderly, I think I am wiser than I’ve ever been (except in anything that has to do with technology, especially digital scams). In that deep and wide area where the world is today, I am green in judgment. Go ahead, laugh. 

I digress. This post looks back to my youth with nostalgia. It’s about the days when I often ate a yummy salad, a luxury that I left behind. 

But because friends send me photos of PINK things (since I started  uploading a series of short posts every Wednesday on unusual PINK creation to my socmed page), I remembered my literal salad days. Meaning, when, as a little girl, I enjoyed this yummy salad on the dining table in the province: Katuday enselada.

My friend Gemma sent me a photo of PINK katuday (Ilocano term for katuray in Filipino and spelled katurai in other countries), an edible flower of a tree that populated our town, but which I cannot find in the city where I live today. 

My mouth watered, imagining a bowl of katuday salad (the three vignettes in the photo below):

 

Depending on one’s palate, this katuday salad can be served/prepared in many ways. I liked mine blanched, then mixed with boggoong (fish sauce), chopped tomatoes and onions, with a drop of vinegar. 

Life then was simple and dishes were easy to prepare. One can wing it along the way, without having to read a cookbook. 

Yup, my salad days are now just memories . . . of grace. How much yummier can that be?  

Half a Century Catch-up

Coming from my last post . . . 

Separated by thousands of miles and both busy with a new family and career, my dear friend, Tits, who opted to remain in Chicago (year 1969), and I lost touch.  

But the pandemic dumped time on my lap to fiddle around with social media—and I found her!  Our messages, however, were cryptic as digital communication is not our default mode.  

Now that the world is back to normal, I received a message from her that she and her husband are in town and do I have time to meet them? 

Do I ever! 

For our meet-up, I wore the silver bracelet that was their gift to me as the maid-of-honor and bridesmaid in one at their wedding. I have treasured this gift, etched with both their names and wedding date. It was my first real jewelry, replacing my plastic and resin bangles. 

(Nothing is lost in the haze of faded photographs.)

That was also the last time we saw each other.  

Can over half a century gap be bridged? 

It can, in seconds—at this hotel lobby.  

We yelped each others’ names, hugged, and the 54 years went pffft. Beneath facial lines, gray brows, and prescription glasses, we saw our young selves and moved from there. How many kids now? Grandkids? What? Where? Who? Whose? When? Why? 

We exchanged laurels (for what else would you call Tit’s enchanting art pieces and my books), scrolled our phones for pictures, some photo ops, then lunch. 

The four-hour catch-up and chat flew by much too quickly. 

An old quote from the Net might have been written by us: True friends are never apart, maybe in distance but never in heart. 

What next? At this lifestage, I leave that to God's grace of serendipity.  

Tits

Please don’t be appalled (or think ill of this blogsite on grace) by the title. It isn’t what you’re thinking. It’s a perfectly-proper-proper noun: it’s the nickname of my dear friend, Tita. 

Perhaps it is culture or habit; in the Philippines, we normally give our close friends affectionate nicknames by using the first syllable of their given names and adding an “s” to it. 

For instance, Karen becomes Kars; Nellie, Nells; Baby, Babes; Nena, Nens; ergo, Tita becomes Tits. 

Tits and I met at the Art Institute of Chicago, where we were both taking our master’s degree in the 1960s. She was enrolled at the college of fine arts, and I, at the college of performing arts. I can’t recall how we met, but because we were the only two Filipinos in that whole academic Institute, it was not a surprise that we’d find each other. 

On Leap Day this year (she was here on vacation with her hubby), she narrated to me this funny (okay, appalling) incident, which I vaguely remember:

She was at the far end of our school cafetria and I, at the other end. To call her attention, very loudly, I waved and yelled, “Tits! Tits!”  I refuse to imagine the reaction of the American crowd then. 

She was in that school on a Fullbright-Hays Award, and I, on my Uncle Joe and Billy’s generosity. 

Naturally, we were both poor, with zero cash for luxuries. She would spend weekends with me at my uncle Joe's home or uncle Billy's and sometimes, we would drop by her dormitory to pick up her things. 

Once we were invited to a Rizal Day formal celebration that required long gowns, which we could not afford to buy. What to do? We sewed them ourselves! 

Tits, being an artist, stayed awake all night making sure everything was pulido (polished to perfection) with her chartreuse trimmings. (I never heard of chartreuse till then; I called it yellow, but Tits was always precise with colors and lines). 

My gown? I haphazardly sewed it in less than two hours, but I had to keep her company, muting our giggles so as not rouse uncle Billy. 

Behold our handiwork. Alas, it could no longer be edited to Tits’ high level of standards. 

I unearthed three more of our fading old photos, reminders of our carefree, poverty days. 

(Christmas eve with Aunt Mary in Chicago)

(Modelling as alternative career?)

(Yes, that's a typewriter.) 

Not long after, Tits got busy preparing for her wedding, while I got busy packing my bags to go back home to the Philippines to marry Tony. But not before . . . (that’ll be for my next post).                    

Treasure Hunt

Children, as well as adults, enjoy treasure hunts in reunions or parties—not so much for the treasure but for the fun in finding it. The real treasure is in the hunt because of the creative clues: word scrambles, anagrams, riddles, and questions. 

The hunt is even more fun if each group has both young children and adults. A clue that says, “Peek through a doughnut hole and find the next step” makes everybody race each other in finding a doughnut.  

Now, isn’t treasure hunt like reading the Bible? 

To find the grace of wisdom, we need to search for it in God’s words.

“Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures. Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord, and you will gain knowledge of God.” (Proverbs 2:2-5 NLT)  

These verses encourage us to spend time and effort to know God better by developing a heart of understanding. If we carefully read the Bible, word for word—and memorize verses that touch us—we find many clues to God’s great love for us. 

We can actually enjoy a treasure hunt every single day. Alone or with someone, we can seek His words and get to know the Lord more and more. What may sound like a puzzle or a word scramble at first, will soon be clear to us. 

The more we search, the deeper our understanding will be, because we will find wisdom—the hidden treasure!