The Cost

Late last year, when I was praying with my friends Michelle and April and we're having a hard time getting a breakthrough, the Lord in his mercy released a word through a vision. The vision that Michelle saw was a flag ceremony. The Philippine flag was being raised up and as the rope of the pulley was being pulled down, there was also the impression of the stronghold of corruption being pulled down. Then she sensed that the Lord is saying that He has heard the cry of the poor and oppressed and the weary...that God's heart goes out to his people with great compassion and love. She prayed, "come Lord" but the the Lord said to her, "how can i come? prepare the way of the Lord!" (Michelle, can you fill us in with the Scripture God gave you? Thanks.)

After she shared this, we started praying this prayer of "prepare the way of the Lord..." We sensed the great urgency. We sensed as well the complacency and unpreparedness of our hearts, our nation. While we though we have been diligently praying and seeking His face, we have not really come to the point of intense seriousness... a position that has really considered the cost and declared the sacrifice worth it for the sake of having God's visitation in our nation.

We have been distracted by petty concerns. Even financial concerns that are not really a matter of life and death. While... the other part of our nation is actually enduring real hardships that our struggles do not even compare to. In short, God rebuked us.

We cried, not for our nation, but for ourselves. That we would find the grace and the courage to face the question of the hour: Are we willing to pay the price?

who will finish the race?

Lou Engle said in one of his preachings that in Israel, during the time when there was so much corruption, the Nazirites were a sign that God had not given up on a nation. "WHEN YOU SAW THE NAZIRITES, YOU'D KNOW THAT GOD HAD NOT GIVEN UP ON A NATION!" During a time of moral depravation and all sorts of breakdown (financial, social, etc.), God raises up a NEW BREED --- a man, or as in this case, a GENERATION that will run hard after HIM and the purposes of HIS HEART. A generation that will groan the very groanings of God. A people that has come to understand the UNQUENCHABLE love of God, a love that is RELENTLESS, and a love that SHALL NOT, WILL NOT surrender His people to the enemy of their soul. A people that will fight for the VERY THING that is IN GOD's HEART.

This reminds me of Michelle's vision and word about the heart of God for the nation. That God in his intense compassion and longing, wants to come... but finds lukewarmness in our invitation... Where has our hunger gone?

Have we started something in HUNGER and then eventually REFUSED to finish it. We have FAINTED somewhere along the way! We have forgotten the promises of God or we simply lost heart or faith. Our nation (they say) has a history of unfinished revolutions! But see, it is time we finish this revolution that we started. Fainting is not an option. Because if we faint, we will be worse off than those who never ran the race! For it will be like losing something that was really meant for us. Trading our inheritance for a bowl of soup! (of what? soup?)

We are a PRAYER MOVEMENT.

And I hear the voice of Lord echoing this words, who will finish this revolution? Sabi nga ng song ni Jason Upton, 'justice is waiting.' SEE the Lord has given us a PROMISE (promises!) and when the mouth of the Lord has spoken, it is a SACRED thing. God is not man that He should lie!

I have been praying with JREV even before the word to gather for a Solemn Assembly in Luneta had been received. (2000-2001) And I am still here right now because I simply BELIEVED. God's word, I believe will come to pass. And I DARE NOT surrender what has already been SECURED.

And the eyes of the Lord are looking to and fro across the earth for a people that is truly HIS.... Whose hearts are completely His... crying out the very cry of a just God wanting to rescue a nation from sin, injustice and corruption... WHO WILL FINISH THE REVOLUTION?

morning

She rises from bed earlier than dawn
Her footsteps gentle but heart beating wild
A love not quenched, undaunted by time and waiting
puts on eternity today.

Her robe, radiant than shimmering stones,
pales beside her countenance
Eyes, face, and form steal the stage from the sunrise
as her hair romances with the breeze
Awake and ready before the sun yawned from the horizon
Her invitation has captured the morn.

Burst out sunlight
Shed rays on a banquet being set
The bride has put on the last pieces of her jewelry
The bridegroom is hurrying back from a year's journey
Longing has intensified and ripened through time
Witness this rite that seals together two destinies

Tomorrow she will rise up from bed
hair uncombed, tangled up, but gracefully falling
The scent of first morning

Frailty unclothed, unguarded before him but safe inside him
In love he has secured her uncertainties
He is the risk she has taken. In risk, she has secured his embrace.