Child-Like Faith (An Exhortation)

Good afternoon, brothers and sisters. I know the kids are all eager and excited to go trunk or treating this afternoon. So I will try to make it as short and sweet as I can.

I’m pretty sure all parents would agree and can relate to this. That children, especially toddlers are utterly free. They don’t worry about anything.

For example, my 2 year old son, or even my daughter for that matter, when we go for a ride in the van, they get in their car seats without asking "Where are we going, Daddy?" They fall asleep in those car seats and wake up somewhere else and never wonder what happen last night.

My son loves to climb tables, chairs, and shelves like all typical boys do, he even loves to play in the stairs heading down the basement. On a couple of occasion, while he was playing on the stairs, he suddenly threw himself up in the air towards me without warning, catching me off guard. Good thing I caught him, or else I would have been in trouble.

So kids are utterly free, they don’t worry about anything, that’s because they have a father and a mother who love them, who look after them, even catch them if they jump. Even looking around the children here right now all gear up with their favorite Halloween costumes, they don’t care what people think of them.

Reflecting on these instances, makes me realized that how I wish my faith to our heavenly Father is like that of our children’s faith in us. As parents, our kids teach us how to be holy by simply who they are and just by doing what they do every day.

So as we prepare to worship this afternoon, I wish to invite everyone to ask for the grace to fully trust and fully surrender to our Lord all our doubts, fears, and troubles. To have a child-like faith.

MARK 10:15 “(For) Anyone who does not welcome the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

Let us pray.

Lord, we believe in you, help our unbelief. Increase our faith and help us to have a faith like a child.

EXHORTATION 10-21-18

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Worship entails Sacrifice (An Exhortation)

Last Tuesday, we had our Cell Group meeting. Our point of discussion was about Sacrifice. We were sharing what are the sacrifices we can offer so that it may enrich the lives of others, in our family, our work and the community we are in. I felt it was a productive and fruitful discussion as it drives us away from ourselves for once and focus on living sacrificially for others more instead.

In a similar sense, whenever we have a community gathering such as today, as I approach worship time, I like to put into heart what St. Paul wrote to the Romans in the very 1^st verse of Chapter 12: “I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.”

Worship entails we sacrifice something. Without sacrifice, we are merely venerating or adoring somebody like we do the saints or our Blessed Mother Mary. If you are in a bad day of coming here today (where your heart and your body are in two opposite spectrum), I wish to tell you to take heart, everyone around here today is already fulfilling a sacrifice for our Lord even just by your mere presence, regardless of your emotional state. And I invite you all to have that mindset and try properly disposing ourselves to worship due to God and God alone by offering ourselves as a living sacrifice, through our presence, through our songs of praise.

EXHORTATION 2017-11-5

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Ants Go Marching One by One & One Stops to Pray to Heaven (An Exhortation)

Good afternoon. Before we begin. Short story. You know my 2 kids, they like to watch YouTube for Kids. (I know bad parenting, right? Give us parents some slack sometimes). Usually what I'll do I cast it on TV using the smartphone, so that they can watch it on TV instead of my phone.

Few weeks ago when we were watching while having our meal, the clips that time were from Super Simple Songs (bunch of kids songs, nursery rhymes and original music, animation pretty good, professionally done). And one of the clips that came up was from a song called "The ants go marching". You know how the song goes... The song also teaches kids how to count. It will say one by one, two by two, etc. and they would show ants marching accordingly to those respective numbers. When the song hits seven, the lyrics went: "The little one stops to pray to heaven..." When my 5 year-old daughter heard the words, she laughed at me and said "Ants pray to heaven??" And asked me "Dad, do ants really pray to heaven?" I told her "You'll never know, perhaps they do. We don't speak ant, we dont understand Ant language. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But one thing I know, in the Bible, in the book of Daniel, I said to my daughter, there's a passage wherein it says "All the birds in the air, bless the Lord. All the fish in the sea, bless the Lord." There is a litany of all the creation of God blessing and praising God repeatedly like praying the rosary and totally biblical. It was a light hearted moment for us, but what seems whimsical made me realize something, "If--biblically--the animals, nature and all of God's creation are invited to praise the Lord, how much more will our heavenly Father long for the praise and worship of His people?

Something to chew on in our disposition this moment as we begin to worship our Lord.

Exhortation 2018-3-4

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