Last week was exciting. Guests came. Popcorn popped. Dark hall darkened. The worship band rocked. And Kuya Prudy, he was retro. And inspiring.

This theme is very dear to me. The past years of my life, I've been busy with a lot of things. Prioritizing isn't part of my vocabulary. I just do things as if I own 70 years of my life.

Grace Place, a non-denominational, non-sectarian Christian church that I'm involved with right now, is starting a message series (4 Sundays) that simply talks about life, its real essence and how to maximize it. I'm personally inviting you to come.

Here's the official announcement.





What if you learned you had just 30 days to live? How would your life be different? Is it possible to make the most of every day, right now?

Join us for "30 Days to Live," as we meet several brave people who had faced or are facing life-threatening illnesses. Once you hear their stories, and experience God's truth, you'll never look at life the same.

February 3, '08 - LIVE IN THE MOMENT
February 10, '08 - LIVE FOR ETERNITY
February 17, '08 - LEAVE A LEGACY
February 24, '08 - FIGHT FOR PEACE

For more information, call (02) 710-6651 or text 0920-9518075 or please send us an email to 30days@graceplace.ph.


WE HOPE TO SEE YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS THIS SUNDAY!

Visit 30daystolive.ph and answer the question, "If you have 30 days to live, what ONE thing would you do?"

GRACE PLACE is a non-sectarian, non-denominational contemporary Christian church that meets every Sunday, 10:30 am, Tiara Oriental Hotel in Makati City.

After we launched 30daystolive.ph last Tuesday, a bunch of guys have already submitted their "plans" for their last 30 days. Here are my favorites:

Spend last days (a week, perhaps) at the beach, with my whole family.  Hopefully, my sis can come home from New Zealand (or I can go there!!).  Go swimming, running, painting, dancing – weeeeeee!!! - Gayle

I will resign from my job to prepare everything (for my family). - Liza

If only I have 30 days to live I would make everyone around me happy… - Infinity

I will talk less and listen more. investing my life to people. - Glenn

lahat ng oras nsa tabi aku ng mga anak ko..mag lalaro kmi hangang mkatulog cla..rerecord ku sa video lahat ng gagawin nmin..paparamdam ku sa kanila na mahal ko cla… -Mhike

I've noticed that when it comes to using the last days of our lives, the focus becomes less of ourselves and more of our love ones.

I'm going to discuss more about this later this week and next week. For now, keep your thoughts coming. Think: "If I have 30 days to live, what ONE thing would I do for the rest of my remaining days?" and post it in our website 30daystolive.ph

You have 30 days to live. What ONE thing would you do?

Answer the question and read others' answers at 30daystolive.ph

Perry Noble's post today disturbed me. I'm disturbed because I needed to be disturbed and I'm not getting it. Make sense? If not, here's why:

Craig Groeschel's book, “Chazown”  mentioned a prayer by Sir Francis Drake that says…

“Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves. When our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little. When we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord.”

Too little vision. Too comfortable. Is that what I am right now?

I want God to disturb me in my relationship with Jesus. The danger of being a long term Christian is complacency. Too much familiarity. Jesus becomes a routine. And I don't want that to happen. I want Jesus to become fresh everyday of my life. (In connection with that, I'm writing a series of blog next week on "Falling in-love with Jesus).

I want God to disturb me in leading Grace Place. I want His church to do dangerous things. Things that have not been done before. Things that are short of sin. Everything to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Jesus.

I want God to disturb me in my relationship with Joy. I don't want us to be on status-quo. I want me to always offer her something new. I want God to disturb me in my relationship with my son, Johann. I want to improve, I want to learn -- being a father is never taught in schools.

I want God to disturb me. Humble me. Humiliate me for his glory. Destroy me and rebuild me. And then spring out a better, bigger vision for me as a leader, a husband and a father.

Are you disturbed?

I'm back from a holiday blogging haitus.

I don't normally start a year with a resolution. Instead, I set goals that I try to reach.

Here are my goals for 2008 that I thought I would share.

1. Learn 1 particular programming language. I'd like to try Java.

2. Be active in professional clubs. I'm a member of Philippine Internet Commerce Society (PICS) but have been inactive. Recent events in my professional life shows that there's power in partnerships within the industry where I belong. So I'm going to do just that.

3. Release one rockin' web application. Can't expose more details here, but it sure will rock.

4. Plan a really great weekend getaway with Joy for our 5th year anniversary. That's this July. Ganns gave me an idea. ;-)

5. Learn how to Communicate for a Change.

6. Release more blessings in writing through this blog -- it's.not.about.me.

7. Read the entire Bible in NLT

8. Be a better husband to Joy, a better father to Johann, a better leader to Grace Place and Team Sparrow, and a better follower of Jesus Christ.

Today, our friends at US of A are celebrating a tradition close to their hearts -- Thanksgiving day. It's really a nice tradition where family and friends come together for dinner and thank God for the great things that he has done. I hope we can have that here, too. Oh well, let's settle for Christmas.

For this post, I'd like to reflect on the things that I want to thank God for.

1. I thank God for my wife, Joy. We've been married for more than 4 years. It wasn't a joy ride as most newly weds can testify. But those 4 years are the most exciting, love-filled time of my life. I thank her for loving me inspite of my mistakes. My love for her grows deeper and stronger each day.

2. I thank God for my son, Johann. God has taught me a lot of things about his love by being a dad. I can imagine how God can be so patient with me as I am with my kid. I sometimes, if not most of the times, get so irritated by his naughtiness, but since I love him, I extend grace and love. God must have been doing the same with me.

3. I thank God for Grace Place. Life isn't boring if there is a goal, a mission, something to look forward to. And with this young church plant, God is showing me how we can create a huge impact in the lives of people. He is giving us a glimpse of how Grace Place can help make his name famous in the city. And, for that, I'm thankful.

What are you thankful for?

Over at Grace Place's Multiply blog, we're having some fun sharing our best ever pinoy urban legends to prepare us for an up coming message series a couple of weeks from now. I never thought it would be this fun.

My favorites so far from the contributions:

* the kaldero. our moms would always scare us that if we don't eat in the evening, we will wake up later, find the kaldero (because we're hungry) then it will eat us alive. I actually believed this when I was  kid.

* remember those old Ramon Revilla films? Some people actually believe that they can get anting-anting from a puso ng saging, they wait for its liquid to drop on Good Friday.

* my folks said, don't sleep with your hair wet, something bad may happen to you. I always wondered what, until the late Ernie Baron gave away the secret -- the reason: because your pillow will get wet, too! :D

Pinoy urban legends are still coming in. Please share here or there pinoy urban legends you learned growing up.

Many of you know that I have a 4-year old blog called Life 2.0 at http://arnold.gamboa.ph. So what can you, my accidental reader expect from this new blog at Multiply?

Blogging has been my cyber life since I started it 4 years ago. But I wasn't focused. I write about anything and everything under the sun -- which is typical of a personal blog. But this time I want to be focused. How?

Life 2.0 will now host hardcore topics such as politics, theology and technology -- three major subjects that bug my mind and needs outlet to be released in the wild to never come back.

This blog, loosely coined as it's.not.about.me, will be partially about me :-) but will be greatly be about my family -- Joy, my lovely wife and Johann, my son. I will also talk about Grace Place, my spiritual family. And lastly, I will try to share with you my spiritual journey, how God has been blessing me and some thoughts I am receiving from my quiet time.
 
So there, I'm officially activating the blog section of it's.not.about.me. (But of course, you are still welcome to visit my other blog). Anyone who wants to welcome me here? :D

Update from Life 2.0 - Why I love Multiply.com

February of next year, Grace Place in Makati will start a message series entitled "30 Days to Live". The basic premise of the series: How will you live your life if you know that you have only 30 days to live.

To prepare for this message series, we are researching and looking for possibility of interviewing on camera 2 to 3 followers of Jesus who are terminally ill. Yung parang may taning na.

Here's where you can help us. If you know of a person who :

* is a believer of Jesus.
* terminally ill, probably s/he has cancer or any other similar disease.
* has a positive perspective on life despite his/her situation
* preferably living within Mega Manila (Metro Manila, Laguna, Cavite, Bulacan, Rizal). We may not be able to travel further than that. But if his/her story is really inspiring, we will try to consider traveling further.
* preferably not older than 49 .
* most especially, willing to share his/her story on how his perspective in life changed because of the life threatening disease.

You don't have to convince them. Just give us a tip -- who this person is, way to contact (ie, cell phone, land line, who to contact initially). We will be the one to talk to them and share with them the vision of the interview. We are hoping that they will agree to be interviewed after we explain the tremendous impact their story can create to the lives of people.

Email me if you have some tips:
arnold.gamboa[at]graceplace.ph

Your contribution to this project is greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot in advance.

Let me be a little controversial as I start: I believe that Jesus WAS NOT born on Dec. 25. Do your research, dudes. Jesus could have not been born on a winter. Commemoration of Jesus’ birthday on Dec. 25 came only later during the time of Emperor Constantine.

No, I’m not trying to start a “Do we have to celebrate Christmas or not?” debate. The reason why I mentioned that controversial fact is for us to shift our focus from what this season, most liberals calls only as the “holidays”, has clouded our minds of — gifts, shopping, parties, santa, reindeer, lights — to the real essence of the celebration.

What’s so special about Christmas?

Well, what’s so special about July 20, 1969? It is the day where man landed the moon. President Nixon, overjoyed with this breakthrough, proclaimed, “This day marks the most important event in the history of mankind”.

The great evangelist Billy Graham corrected him, “With all due respect, Mr. President, but the day man landed the moon isn’t the most important event in the history of mankind, it is when GOD landed on earth in the form of a man in the person of Jesus Christ”.

That’s why Christmas is special, folks. Christmas, whatever day it is that we want to celebrate, marks the day when the creator stepped into our lives in the form of a creature. It is a day when he decided to “come out of his comfort zone” because of his love towards mankind — that includes you and me. It is the day when Jesus started his journey that will eventually lead to him sacrificing his life and pay for the sins that you and I had been committed, is committing and will commit.

If you’re doubting if God can ever understand you when you’re afraid, when you’re tempted, when you’re discouraged, when you have the biggest problem on your shoulders, think again. Christmas made it possible for God to understand your deepest struggles in life because he himself became man and dwelt among us like a normal baby, a normal kid, a normal teenager, a normal worker (he was a carpenter). He had problems with his staff — one betrayed him and one denied him. He had problems with his family members including his brothers — at the beginning of his ministry, they won’t believe him. Jesus knows how you feel because he went through the same struggles that you and I am undergoing through. That’s because of Christmas.

(Incidentally, Grace Place will have a special Christmas celebration this Sunday with a very special message entitled, yes you got it, “What’s So Special About Christmas?” This blog post is NOT the summary :D So, if you’re near Makati area, I’d like to invite you to be my guest)

All the other stuff are good, those are fun and can’t-celebrate-without. But understanding the real essence of Christmas can make you enjoy the season even without those, even without gifts and the lights and the fancy activities. Because you know that God has already given you the most precious gift you can imagine, in fact the most precious possession in heaven — Jesus Christ. Make him the love of your life. Your Lord. Your Savior.

Just like the other Saturday nights, I’m wide awake at 1 am preparing the multimedia materials for tomorrow’s service at Grace Place. I should say though that I’m more excited than ever before. Here are the reasons why:

1. We’re kicking off our new series for our Christmas month entitled “God’s Gift For You This Christmas”. And to keep the Christmas wind felt even more intensely, we invited a choir to sing for us. Now, for the church that I grew up with, choirs singing on worship services are normal. But for a contemporary, praise and worship type of church that Grace Place is, you can only hear choirs singing once in a blue moon. And with the help of a very good friend of mine, a room mate back in the college days, we are able to invite his group to sing for us.

Aside from seeing the choir sing tomorrow, one thing that excites me, too, is the awaken memories. You see, back in college, being in a singing group -- or a choir -- was my life. I was part of 2 singing groups -- Rhesonic Harmony and Evangel Chorale. During breaks, we travel and sing in churches. We’ve traveled as far as Baguio in the north and Iloilo in the south. That was fun. And hearing the harmonies of acapella voices tomorrow will sure tickle those memories again.

2. I’m going to use for the second time in the service my new MacBook. Oh, yeah! God has answered my prayers last week. I better post a separate one for this.

3. We’re expecting guests to flood tomorrow. With God’s grace, people will be blessed. Grace Place, keep on inviting your friends and see how God does his job of changing lives.

God’s plan for you

God has long planned for us a very meaningful and secured life. In his great love to you and me, he wanted us to live life to the full.

But in reality, we’re far from it. No wonder we have messed up our lives over and over again. Broken relationships, anger, foolishness, uncertainties… all of these and more are just manifestations of our root problem…

Sin: Our root problem

…and this is the cause of all these mess. Sin. We have inherited it from our forefathers. In fact, we are born sinners.

“Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” Ps. 51:5

And the thing is, nobody is exempted from this wrath… we are all sinners!

“Yes, all have sinned; fall short of God’s glorious ideal” (Romans 3:23).

The Bad News

When God told Adam and Eve that they will die when they did not trust his word, he meant it. And they will die, not just death as we know it, but death that will equal to eternal separation from God. No punishment is greater that being separated from a wonderful creator.

And of course, we have inherited this also: “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

Death. That’s what sin shall bring us.

We can’t do anything about it

No amount of good works can cure this sin problem. “… and all our righteousness are as filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6) Even how hard we try, we will “keep on falling short of God’s standard”. Do we have any hope?

…the SON : The Good News

God did not end everything there. I’m glad that God has a plan! And it actually worked!

Instead of us dying because of this sin problem, he sent his SON Jesus Christ to die on our behalf. Jesus, being a CREATOR decided to take the form of a CREATURE only for us humans to understand this great love of God. He took our filthy clothes, replaced ours with his, and hang himself on that cross. He died so that we can wear a pure, shiny white shirt. Then he rose again to secure our future. And by what Jesus did on that cross, God forgave all of our sins – past, present, future – and declared us righteous in his eyes.

Some call it the ‘gospel’, I simply call it awesome love!

How, then, can I be saved?

Since we can’t do anything to solve our sin problem, and that God has solved it thru his SON, all we need to do is to accept this wonderful grace by faith.

“Because of His kindness you have been saved through trusting Christ. And even trusting is not of yourselves - it too is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good that we have done, so none of us can take any credit for it” (Ephesians 2:8, 9)

Now if you are still thinking that you can gain eternal life by doing good works [your good works are ‘good’, not bad at all, so continue doing it, but…], let me say this again… we are saved only by grace, only thru faith in Christ’s finished work of redemption. Hey! It’s free! God has planed this long ago, so why don’t you accept it now. Accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour and trust him all your life. Man! That’s the best news I have ever heard in my entire life.

“The testimony is this: God has given us eternal life and this life has its source in His Son. Whoever has the Son has this life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:11, 12).

Accept this free gift now, accept Jesus, believe what he has done for you, let him be your life… and entrust everything under the SON.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, I need you. I confess that I am a sinner. I believe that you died on the cross to pay for all my sins. With Your help, I will turn away from sins. Please come into my life and be my Savior and my Master. I accept your gift of eternal life. Make me the kind of new person you want me to be. Thank you for coming into my life and giving me eternal life. Amen.

(Postscript: “There is rejoicing (our term: partying) in heaven when one soul repents”. If ever this article helped you in a way in your decision to accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, please let me know. I would like to join all heavens as they party because of your decision. Tell me your testimony and with your permission, I’ll post it here in the site so others can be blessed by and draw strength from it.)

We know the basics, we know the protocol of church-going. Yet, somehow, we are lost and groping for life’s meaning. We try to be good, help the poor, pray occasionally, try not to swear too much… but we are never really sure if all these good stuff merit something.

We have some good news for you: We can know for sure.

A church community of young urban professionals in Makati.