WHAT’S SO MAUNDY ABOUT THURSDAY?

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What’s so special about Mandy Thursday? I understand Friday for that’s when Jesus was crucified. Saturday was when Jesus was in the grave. As for Sunday, it was the greatest event in all of human history.

What happened on Thursday? And why’s so “maundy” about it?

Maundy comes from the Latin word where we derive the word ‘mandate’. It was a day where a command was given by Jesus. It was on the night before he was betrayed where He took the cup and the bread, blessed and gave thanks to share the meal with His disciples.

It was during the meal that Jesus took a basin of water, wrapped a towel around His waist and started to wash the disciples feet. So what was the “mandate” that made Thursday Maundy?

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

What He did (washing the feet of his disciples) preceded what He said (love one another).

It was a powerful moment for if He only told them what they needed to do, they would most likely obey but the impact wouldn’t be as intense and compelling.

If their Master could serve them the way He did, how much more can they do the same to others?

His command to love one another is an overflow of the love we have received.
We love because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

REFLECTION APPLICATION:

1. Pray to Jesus now and thank Him for His sacrificial love to take our place on the cross for He died on our behalf. He paid the debt He didn’t owe because we owed a debt we couldn’t pay.

2. Pray for someone now to know Christ personally as their Lord and Savior (family member, friend, officemate, classmate).

3. Text that person a verse to encourage and reflect on what Jesus did on the cross.

“GOD WITH SKIN”

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A father was tucking his son to sleep. After the lights were turned off, the son asked his dad to stay a bit longer with him.
To comfort his son, the father said, “Son, God is here and is always with you.”
To this, the little boy replied, “Yes. But I want someone with skin.”

Right before the turning point of history – from BC to AD, God had manifested His presence in various ways. While His people were in the desert, it was through a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
When they entered the promised land, God manifested and rested His presence in the temple.
But right at the central point of history, at the fullness of time, as Paul said in Galatians, God sent His Son as a full manifestation of His divine presence.

Paul wrote the church in Colossae saying, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” (Colossians 1:15)

“Image” implies representation and manifestation. Jesus was representing the Father. But not only did Jesus represent His Father, He Himself was God. He declared, “Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)

How significant was this for you and me?

First and foremost, it meant our salvation. Through Christ, we are redeemed because of His atoning sacrifice at Calvary.

At the same breath, He is not just for us, He is also with us – “Immanuel.”

Hebrews 4:15 tells us, “For we do not have a high priest incapable of sympathizing with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin.”

As you go through life, fear may strike. At times, frustrations may hit you. Furthermore, testings and trials may come your way unexpectedly. But the assurance of His presence as we go through them assures us that we are not alone. He is for us and not against us. He will never leave nor forsake. He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

FROM DRUG DEALING TO DIVINE DEPENDENCE

 

It’s amazing how the Bible, when lived out by a few ordinary people can be used by God to create a miracle of “changed lives.”

Watch Jappeth’s story of how his life turned around when Jesus stepped in.

 

UNLIKELY POSTURE

Humility is an interesting trait.

Once you claim you have it, you’ve actually lost it.

Some have an aversion to this trait.

Number 1, it is because we all have an “I” problem. We all struggle with pride in some shape or form. Admit it.

If you don’t agree, consider this. Notice who you usually look at first when there’s a group picture with you in it.

Another reason is that humility may be perceived as weak, insignificant, and subservient. We live in a world that wants to dominate. And being humble may look as if you are not in control.

In John 13, Jesus exemplifies servant leadership. This is where we see humility at its finest.

What made Jesus an amazing leader?

1. CLARITY OF PURPOSE

Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. (John 13:1)

It was clear to Him why He came and who He came for.

He made a declaration to His disciples, “I came not to be served but to serve and give my life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28)

When a leader is clear on the purpose of his leadership, the focus is then taken off from self.

It doesn’t become about you. The goal is to serve the purpose.

It doesn’t matter who gets the credit as long as the job gets done.

2. CONFIDENCE IN IDENTITY

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God. (John 13:3)

Jesus had all power and all authority.

Because He knew who He was, there was no pressure to prove Himself.

Insecure leaders are usually people who don’t know who they are called to be and what they are designed to do.

Jesus was secure in His identity. He knew who He was.

It is identity that establishes security.

I love what C.S. Lewis said,
“True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.”

Lord, help us to lead with a clear purpose and being confident in our identity in Christ.

PACQUIAO’S REAL FIGHT

I’m not a boxing analyst so this is really not an evaluation of the fight.

But reading the tweets after the Pacquiao-Marquez fight has been interesting to say the least.

Some cheer Manny on saying that they still believe in him while others predict the end of his career.

The most interesting ones are those that credit his loss to his faith in God.
That one, I don’t understand.

Unfortunately, God gets the blame in the process.
People will crucify you for your faith. If I remember correctly, that’s what was done to Jesus.

But the other thought I had was this:
Faith is tested both in the winning and in the losing.

It is fun to win. No doubt about that.
Equally true is the difficulty in accepting defeat.  At least, I know I do.

But fact remains,
“It’s not what happens to you that is important but how you respond to what happens to you.”

You can win and end up losing.
Conversely, you can lose and end up winning.

(Great blog by my friend, Dennis Sy, found here by the way.)

Looks to me that Manny’s responding well which is a test of character and a test of faith. It surely is a difficult one to swallow and a tough one to accept, but this is where the rubber meets the road.

I believe Manny will surpass this test.
His identity and security is no longer in the championship belt but on the Champion Himself.

For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3, NLT)

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM VICTORY FORT

 

Here’s our announcement video for our Christmas activities this December.

Sambang Gabi, December 15 @ 5 am.
Christmas Eve Service, December 24 @ 2pm, 4pm, 6pm.

We also would like to take the opportunity to greet you a very Merry Christmas.

 

CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS ON DVD

Christmas is just around the corner. And it is in this season when many of our families, friends and loved ones are most open to the gospel. Because of this, we’ve come up with a tool which you may use to share the love of Jesus during this season.

The Christmas Traditions video hopes to build lasting memories with family and at the same time an opportunity to share Jesus to others.

This video may be used in several ways:

1. Show it to your family to share how to start Christmas Traditions in your own homes.
2. Get together with your Victory Group to learn how to make Christmas more meaningful in your own families.
3. Use it as a tool to invite friends and family in your Victory Group as an outreach event.
4. You may even join up with other Victory Groups to have a mini-cluster of groups to invite people from the community or office.

The 3-part video teaching of Christmas Traditions will be available for download starting Saturday, November 24, 12:00 NN from http://victoryfort.org/christmastraditions.

If you are a Victory Group Leader, you may request for a DVD copy.
Click here to request a copy.
We pray that God will use us to share His love to many during this holiday season.

Merry Christmas!

 

 

 

VIEWS ON THE SEQUENCE OF CHRIST’S COMING

Although all Evangelicals agree on the final results of Christ’s return, there is disagreement over three important details concerning future events: the nature of the millennium, the sequence of Christ’s return, and the proper way to interpret prophecy.

Revelation 20:1-5

And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection.

Throughout the history of the church there have been four major views on the time and nature of the millennium.

Amillennialism

1. There is no future millennium yet to come. The expression “thousand years” is simply a figure of speech for a long period of time. Christ’s reign in the millennium is not a bodily reign here on earth but rather the heavenly reign.

The number one thousand is used figuratively in Scripture and in first century Greek.

2. Revelation 20 describes the present church age in which Satan’s influence over the nations has been greatly reduced so that the gospel can be preached.

Those who are referred to in the text as reigning with Christ are Christians who have died and are already reigning with Him in heaven.

 3. The present church age will continue until the time of Christ’s return. There will then be a resurrection of both believers and unbelievers and the final judgment.

This view has a long history. Augustine was one of its major proponents (although some dispute that claim—it is not easy to reconstruct the views of historical figures).

Premillennialism

 It is sometimes called Historic Premillennialism to distinguish it from the third view.

1. The present church age will continue until a time of great tribulation and suffering comes on the earth.

The tribulation in Matthew 24 and Mark 13 does not refer to the fall of Jerusalem but to the end of the world.

2. After the tribulation Christ will return to earth to establish a literal one thousand-year kingdom. Believers will be raised from the dead (with glorified bodies) and will reign with Christ on earth. Many unbelievers will turn to Christ and be saved during this time.

 3. Satan will be bound and have no influence on the earth during the millennium. But after the thousand years, he will be loosed and initiate a battle against Christ. But he will be defeated. There will then be a fi-nal judgment and believers will enter into the eternal state.

This views dates back as far as Justin Martyr in the second century.

Dispensational Premillennialism

Dispensational Premillennialists believe all the ideas of the above view, but add several more. This is the view of the Left Behind series and most of the fanatical people making crazy predic-tions about the end of time.

Please refer to the document Appendix G: Dispensationalism vs. Covenant Theology for more understanding on the differences between this view and Historical Premillennialism.

1. Christ will return before the tribulation and millennium to secretly take believers out of the world.

This is referred to as the Rapture or Secret Rapture.

There are different views here. Some hold to a pre-tribulation Rapture, others to a mid-tribulation Rapture, and still others to a post-tribulation Rapture.

2. There will be a great tribulation on the earth for seven years ruled by the Antichrist. During this time, all the Jews will be saved.

3. After seven years, Christ will return with his saints to reign on the earth for one thousand years.

4. Satan will be bound and have no influence on the earth during the millennium. But after the thousand years, he will be loosed and initiate a battle against Christ. But he will be defeated. There will then be a fi-nal judgment and believers will enter into the eternal state.

Postmillennialism

“Postmillennialism holds that the Kingdom of God is now being extended in the world through the preaching of the Gospel and the saving work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of individuals, that the world eventually is to be Christianized, and that the return of Christ is to occur at the close of a long period of righteousness and peace.” (Lorraine Boettner, The Millennium, p. 14

 1. We are in the millennium now—the period in between the first and second coming of Christ.

Although some postmillennialists believe that the millennium is a future period of create gospel expansion into all of life and culture.

2. The progress of the gospel will gradually increase and encompass a larger proportion of the world’s popu-lation. There will be significant Christian influences on society, society will more and more function ac-cording to God’s standards.

“The thing that distinguishes the biblical postmillennialist, then, from Amillennialism and Premillennialism is his belief that Scripture teaches the success of the great commission in this age of the church.

3. Christ will return after the millennium. Then the dead will be raised, the final judgment will occur, and there will be a new heaven and new earth.

4. Postmillennialism is optimistic about the power of the gospel to change lives.

The fundamental question is: what has more power, sin or the resurrection?

5. There are several misconceptions of Postmillennialism.

  • Postmillennialism has been mistakenly linked with belief in the inherent goodness of man.

This has occurred despite the fact that the vast majority of postmillennialists of today (and per-haps even in the past) are Calvinists. The result is that postmillennialism has been perceived as teaching that the kingdom of God would be ushered in by human effort alone, independently of the Holy Spirit. Even a scholar as astute as Kenneth Kantzer has recently fallen prey to this er-ror. In his concluding observations to the debate in the Christianity Today Institute, he writes: “The greatest weakness of postmillennialism is its failure to take seriously the biblical pessimism regarding man’s efforts apart from God.”

Postmillennialists affirm “the biblical optimism regarding man’s efforts through God.”

  •  Postmillennialism has been mistakenly identified with theological liberalism and the “social gospel.”

Thus the kingdom it espoused came to be perceived as some sort of secular utopia that re-placed the return of Jesus as the true hope of the church.

Hope for this earth that is inspired by belief in the power of the Holy Spirit fulfilling the redemp-tive purposes of God through His church must never be confused with a hope inspired by belief in the power of human legislation, education and moral reform. Not all Christians, though, have been able to distinguish between the two.

“In their zeal to stand against the liberal tide, large numbers of Christians threw the baby out with the bath. In disdain for the evolutionary social gospel, sincere believers were led to reject Christian social concern for an exclusively internal or other-worldly religion, and to substitute for the earlier belief in a progressive triumph of Christ’s kingdom in the world, a new, pessimis-tic catastrophism with respect to the course of history.” (Greg Bahnsen)

 

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NOTE: Content taken from Paul Barker’s Eschatology Primer

END OF THE WORLD

(NOTE: These are my notes for the 1st installment of “THE END” series at Victory Fort. I’m posting this for those who might have missed the verses I tackled because I went through them quite fast.)

This year is supposed to be the end of time – 2012. Not only because of the movie, but because some believe that this is based on the Mayan calendar.

Throughout history there have been 242 failed predictions and counting, from Montanus to Harold Camping. (site here)

There’s a fascination on knowing when Jesus will come and thereby usher in the end of time as we know it.

As Wayne Grudem says in his Systematic Theology book,

“(People) can make reasonable predictions about future events based on patterns of past occurrences, but in the nature of human experience, it is clear that human beings of themselves cannot know the future.”

But at the same breath, God does give us verses in Scripture to let us know a few things we can expect.

1. When will this happen?

Acts 1:6-7. He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.

Matthew 24:36.”No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

Matthew 24:42. “Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.”

Matthew 24:44. “For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.”

The degree to which we actually long for Christ’s return is a measure of the spiritual condition of our lives at the moment.

Philippians 1:23-24. “I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.”

2. How will this happen?

It will be visible, personal, public and sudden.

VISIBLE.

Acts 1:11. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

PERSONAL.

Luke 21:27. “At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”

PUBLIC.

Revelation 1:7. “Look, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of Him.”

SUDDEN.

2 Peter 3:10. “The day of the Lord will come like a thief…”

3. What should we do?

When the disciples were asking Jesus when He’ll come back, He told them this.

Acts 1:8. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

We must focus on the task rather than on the time of His coming. His kingdom will continue to advance.

Isaiah 9:7. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.

Matthew 11:12. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.

Jesus told us to keep doing His work until He comes back.

Luke 19:13. “Occupy till I come.”

The way we view the future will dictate the decisions we make today.

HOW EXPENDABLE ARE YOU?

 

 We try our best to project our value so that we will not be rendered indispensable.

No one writes their CV listing down the things that they failed in or things they failed to complete.

That way, people will think the best about us and when applying for a job, we will get the best offer that could be afforded to us … and understandably so.

Being dispensable is not something we  normally aspire for thereby it is counter-culture to how we wish to live our lives. This carries over to our spiritual lives as well, whether we admit it or not.

Read what Tullian Tchividjian says (an excerpt from his book Jesus Plus Nothing Equals Everything)

Because of this newfound freedom (in Christ), we suddenly discover how expendable we really are. I know none of us likes to believe we’re expendable, but we are—every single one of us.

The world will go on without you; the world will go on without me. But only the gospel can cause you to rejoice and be glad in your expendability—because the gospel shows us that while we matter, we’re not the point. That’s liberating, because when we become the hero of our own story, life becomes a tragedy.

Because Jesus was someone, we’re free to be no one.
Because Jesus was extraordinary, we’re free to be ordinary.