Yesterday was the last Sunday of the month and my morning doesn’t started right, I had a small fight with my sister because I didn’t like the way she speak towards me after I insists of fetching water so I could watered the plants early so I could prepare for church.

Anyway, despite my early misunderstanding with my younger sister I still went to church to asked for enlightenment and forgiveness, to asked God to remove the anger in my heart. Honestly, lately I have noticed that I tend to collect anger in my heart and I wasn’t the same person anymore who can’t be angry, well I guess I have changed a lot for the past few months I became strong emotionally.

There were three speakers in the pulpit yesterday, two of them are young people who went to Kasapulanan and then Pastor E, the scriptural topic was based on the topic in the Kasapulanan which is “Our Legacy Getting Right in a Culture that Has Gone Wrong” derived from scriptural verses of 1 Timothy 1: 1-6 and Daniel 3: 16-18.  The first young speaker talks about the end time (Revelation 5:5 and Revelation 1:3) as well as the wrong culture of many Christians today by going to church wearing improper clothes.

[Photo courtesy of  Lynn Babcock/pinterest.com]

The second young speaker who is a lot better than the first speaker talked about the Gospel and what Gospel shows, she firstly shared that Gospel is word of God (2 Timothy 3:16), it was a strong force against bad and even questioned how other people go to church but doesn’t changed their attitude.

Anyway, second Gospel is the Kingdom of God (Matthew 4:12 and 1 Timothy 4:16) and lastly the culture, it was said as time passes culture changes, during biblical time church officers were appointed and not elected (Acts 1: 12-26 and Genesis 14:20). Pastor E then elaborate and speak a little about the topic that was spoken by the first two young speakers, and says that in Daniel 3: 16-18 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego the three people that were mentioned in these verses have three beautiful things in their life they have a strong answer, strong faith and principle.

Today, the service was different, Pastor E did the Sunday school service for youth and adult since the women were the one in-charge this Sunday to celebrate World Day of Prayer.

World Day of Prayer is takes place internationally on the first Friday of March every year but it was fine to celebrate on different Sunday if it isn’t possible on first Sunday and the host country for WDP 2016 is Cuba with the theme, prepared by the women, is “Receive children, receive me” with a focus on children. The scripture readings for the service are Isaiah 11:1-10 and Mark 10:13-16. The Bible study texts are Mark 10:13-16 and Luke 19:1-10.

The program started by the leader reading about a short background about Cuba,  the leader was my older cousin and it was a heartbreaking start since she was crying and sobbing because my aunt’s eternal reposed was brought home a moment before the proper service started, the church was just in the neighborhood so they saw it when the funeral parlor came. After a short introduction about cuba,  Cuba’s national flower “butterfly jasmine” was introduced and then the service runs according to a program written by World Day of Prayer Committee of Cuba.

The church was decorated in Cuban theme, there were different colors of paper butterflies adorned the pulpit. It was said that they should be look like butterfly jasmine but they end up looking like butterflies.

World Day of Prayer is a global ecumenical movement led by Christian women who welcome you to join in prayer and action for peace and justice.

It was first Sunday of the month again today and the service proper started as early as seven o’clock. Pastor E scriptural topic was about “time” and the scriptural verse was from Ephesus 5: 16 that says “Making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil.”

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Pastor E says that time is precious because it is short and when it passed it cannot be recover that’s why there is always regrets at the end when we didn’t use our time wisely. God give us certain set of time (Matthew 12:36) to do good but how much time we have wasted?

Time is also an opportunity to do good (redeeming time), it is God’ special gift to us, it was God given opportunity with purposes (Hebrews 3:15).

Today is the last Sunday of the month and the church is celebrating its 51st Founding Anniversary and Thanksgiving, it should be also Easter Sunday but due to some circumstances some members didn’t agree that there should be a separate devotion at early morning, welcoming Easter.

[Image source: biblepic.com]

Anyway, Pastor E’s scriptural topic is Remember, Rejoice and Rededicate from scriptures of Deuteronomy 8:18, Deuteronomy 32:7, Psalms 64:10 and Romans 12:1. He started his preaching from remembering back the old days on how the church was built and started. He recalled how the older members served faithfully in the church, how united and active they were. Then Pastor E shared some reasons to celebrate and rejoice, on 51 years that had passed the church produces four daughter churches and it is progressively ahead than the mother church in the province.

[Image source: lifencanvas.blogspot.com]

Rededicate, Pastor E told everyone that along the way we have lapses on our relationship with God, we are sometimes discourage with our relationship between ourselves and our brothers so we should settle this issues, restore our faith and commitment with God.

May our hearts be truly grateful and may we show our gratitude by the ways in which we live and care for others.

Well, after the church service, there is a small feast. Every zone bring food to feast but I went home and didn’t eat since I have no contribution in the food that our zone prepared.

The church proper service today didn’t started early because there is a small meeting on what to do next Sunday and who’s to send as delegates in the convention of Baptist churches next month. I was asked by older women member if I would like to go but I declined since it is going to held in far away town of our province. The convention usually take three or more days but everything from fare, registration and food will be shouldered by the church.

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This Sunday is also Baccalaureate Sunday so there is a recognition and dedication of graduates from all levels. One graduate also gave testimony on God’s faithfulness on her struggles while studying. Anyway, Pastor E finally delivered the scriptural message this Sunday and his scriptural topic is Building a Legacy that Lasts which can be found at Mark 12: 28-31. He asked everyone if it would make a difference if you learned you had very little time left? Would it change your priorities if you felt life slipping away?

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Just like Reverend R’s message a few Sunday’s ago, Pastor E’s basis of topic was about a person who’s expert in the law asked  God what is the greatest commandment and Jesus replied that it is to love God and to love the people God puts around you. Pastor E says Jesus modeled this perfectly, and his legacy has had more impact on the world than any individual in history. He didn’t leave a legacy of money, property or power. Instead, he left a legacy of loving God completely, and sacrificially loving us and a legacy of loving others.

Would it make a difference if you learned you had very little time left? Would it change your priorities if you felt life slipping away? We are all running out of time. The opportunity to leave the legacy we want is one day shorter than it was yesterday.

Pastor shared a few stories and parable about the goat and lamb and then asked everyone if what is the legacy we are leaving on earth since we are leaving foot prints behind us.

It was second Sunday of the month today and it is changed pulpit Sunday, a different Pastor delivered a message. The service proper was started late because there is a short discussion about the upcoming Thanksgiving and Foundation Day of the church.

Some people at my back was a bit shocked when the leader sit in the chair where a Pastor usually seated, I heard someone asked if the leader will be the preacher, it answers my thought that there is something wrong when the service proper started. Anyway the scriptural topic delivered by the Pastor was “The Beauty of Being Faithful” and the scriptural verse was from Job 2: 1-6, according to Pastor R there are three beauties of being faithful and the first one is God is proud to us.  He is proud when we live a clean and upright life like the life of Job, the Pastor also added that God wasn’t lacking and He didn’t commit mistake when He send over trials and problems to us, maybe it was us who did something wrong.

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Secondly, God is concerned to us. He won’t let us down, He will help us when we are willing to help ourselves first. He doesn’t walk away but we are the one who walk away from God through the sins we are making. Pastor R also says if you are concerned to someone it means you love that person just like how God is concerned to us because He love us.

The last beauty of being faithful is God is sufficient.  There are a lot of things God want us to have, to experience but all He wanted first is for us to be faithful to Him.  How? Pastor R says we must do all things with love,in short  do all things to God with love.

It was the first Sunday of the month and as usual the church service started very early.  Pastor E invited a new speaker in the person of Reverend R, he preaches in three languages, English, a bit of Tagalog and a bit of local dialect from his place of service but he speak mostly with English language.

The scripture reading was found in Matthew 22: 34-40 with a scriptural topic of Congregational Health. It tells about the Greatest Commandments, how a Pharisees expert in the law asked Jesus what is the greatest commandment in the Law.

Reverend R focuses on relationship and love, God’s love to us, our love to God and our love for one another. He says, it is very hard for everyone to ask for forgiveness because of the so called PRIDE. The person who first asked for forgiveness and fixes a relationship wasn’t always the sinner; mostly it was someone with love in his heart. He added relationship is an important teacher, so we should be mindful with our relationship to God and to our neighbours. A good relationship with God but with no meaningful relationship with fellowmen doesn’t do good; in vertical aspect it has no power if we didn’t fix our relationship with others.

Reverend E says that the foundation of every relationship is love and the essence of foundation of relationship is God.  He aslo says love is more important than understanding and mysteries. Love enhance and increased the harmony, love is not become angry.  We are expert in adding pain in someone’s heart so he challenge everyone to be mindful with our relationship because what’s the point of collecting bad feelings when it doesn’t do good to us, it will just make us old. Reverend E ended his preaching by telling that let God take care for ourselves and let us take care with one another.

Christ is our peace, those who are divided are made one. Christ has broken down the barriers of separation by His death and has built us into one body, with God. To whomever repents and believes, Christ has promised reconciliation. So love as people reconciled.

Reverend E left after preaching since he needs to do another service in the nearby town as speaker. There is a church hopping after the service, and after which the church will go swimming in the well-known beach shore but I didn’t go with them, I went home after the service.

It is the last Sunday of the month today, Pastor E and his family is already home but the church already invited a new speaker, which is Pastor J.

The scriptural topic this Sunday was from the book of 1 Corinthians 13: 3-7 and 13 with the scriptural topic about God’s love. According to Pastor J, love is sacrifice. If we love God His words reflect to ourselves, if we have something to sacrifice for God it would be our time.

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Love is trust (1 corinthians 13:7) without trust there is no faith. We should always trust God and let Him rule with our life. Pastor J says that trust is also important among married couple so that their relationship won’t fail and prosper.

Love  doesn’t fade away (Psalms 136), Pastor J says we should go far away from God’s love and we should love God as always. She set an example how a young couple started their lives together as very sweet couple and they go to church together and how they ended walking to church separately after 50 years of marriage.

Today is the second Sunday that Pastor E wasn’t around, it is quite noticeable that the church wasn’t the same as when he is around, there is a lot of vacant chairs. Anyway the speaker this Sunday was a friend and school mate, she is licensed and practicing teacher and I expect a lot from her but like a saying says don’t expect a lot so you won’t get disappointed.

[Image credit: brandinicolejm.wordpress.com]

It was like I was attending a seminar about smart phones and the applications you can installed in them. She focused in this topic a lot rather than to the bible verse which is to be found at Luke 18:1 and Matthew 21:22. It was only the latter that she was able to get on the topic when she shared a educational video how God left the cross to us and how He help us go up when we are down.

Well, I understand that she would like to pin point how important smart phone to every one and how people neglected the bible and how convenient it would be if God has His own Facebook and Instagram account but explaining the ratio and how these mobile applications works isn’t too important when you are speaking in front of the congregation, if it was seminar that’s given but people go to church to be blessed and not to learn about modern technology.

Disclosure: The above written post was my own personal opinion and might be different from yours. 

This Sunday is different from other Sundays that had passed because Pastor E wasn’t around, he is on vacation leave, as what I have heard it is for one month they visited her wife’s family in Northern Philippines.

Today is Valentine’s Day and the church was decorated by young people with heart cut outs. The speaker this Sunday was one of the members of the church, it wasn’t energetic like Pastor E but surely it has a message within a message but it feels like I was in a classroom and listening to my high school teacher.

The scripture verse was from the book of Jude 21 with scripture topic of Remain in God’s love since it is Valentine’s Day. The speaker shared three challenges to be considered which are:

1. What does it mean to love God?
2. How can we remain in God’s love?
3. How will God reward those who remain in His love?

The speaker says God doesn’t abandon us and He doesn’t leave us alone in our struggles (Psalms 91:2). We show our love to God when we observe His commandments and apply His principles which are written in the bible.