The CCS: Overcoming

The evenings were reserved for the divided sessions. On the first night, I listened to Bro. Ricky’s preaching on “Overcoming Sinful Habits.” His presentation of the matter was rather simple and basic, but it is in this simplicity that I got to appreciate the message. There was no what-to-do list nor was there “ten practical things you can do to help you in your struggle with sin.” Instead, what he emphasized was the gravity of sin, and the fact that depraved creatures like us would not be able to pull off a decent fight against what is natural and inherent in us. Our hope then is found in Christ alone who proved victorious over sin and death when He died on the cross, and resurrected on the third day.

The only solution really is to hurry always to the foot of the cross, and beg God for His grace to see us through the struggles and the temptations.

Basic though this principle is; yet, I have realized that this is a most difficult thing to do. This is because as a sinner, I have a penchant for independent reliance on myself. It is not natural for me to come running to God; hence, my trust in God’s grace requires God’s grace, too.

One of the things that encouraged me, however, was the truth that God is sovereign. The sins that I am struggling to overcome are all pieces in the wonderful fabric of His plan for me. Sometimes, I feel like I am a lone soldier in the battlefield surrounded by a sea of enemies. But the truth is that I am not alone.

By God’s grace alone, I can overcome.

The CCS: After the Rebuke

This is one marvelous truth: God is a loving Father who knows how to deal gently with his children.

The Convention was an opportunity for me to evaluate myself in light of God’s Word. And truth be told, I have failed in that evaluation. The sermons preached on the pulpit came to me like a full-body mirror exposing my soot-filled face, my dirty feet, my foul-smelling mouth, but most of all, my rotting heart. And boy, seeing yourself that way ain’t exactly the best feeling in the world. After three days of rebuke after rebuke, I was broken.

And being broken, I was glad.

But what makes me even more glad is the fact that God didn’t leave me wallowing in the pool of my failures. Instead, He fueled my heart with encouragement through one pastor’s preaching on biblical courage which can be summed up in the phrase: Never give up. That is just how gracious and loving He is. It is so overwhelming to know that despite of these failures, God still cares for me that He showed me the areas where I failed; and then, like a very loving Father, calls me to His side and comforts me with the thought that I can run the race again. This is also the same way God treated Peter when he denied Christ. After the rebuke came restoration.

The Cebu Convention Series

As of this time, it has been exactly twelve days since the CCM Youth Convention in Cebu ended. As of this time, I had exactly twelve days to process every lesson I learned. But after exactly twelve days, I have come to realize that the processing takes a lifetime.

It is because of this that I have decided to come up with a small project in this blog called, “The Cebu Convention Series” (a.k.a. “The CCS”). Once a week, for the rest of my summer break, I will try to post one lesson which managed, by the Holy Spirit’s amazing work, to penetrate into my otherwise calloused heart.

Given my state of spiritual depravity, it is not a surprise that I tend to forget these lessons as quickly as Dora would. This project, I pray, would allow me (or force me) to sit down, go back to my notes, gather my thoughts, and piece them together into a cohesive whole; thereby, jumpstarting what I hope to be a lifetime of processing.

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Note: I am such a stubborn, hard-headed, and hopeless pupil in the school of the Christian life. Only He who is the greatest teacher has not given up on me (and He never will, thank goodness). Whatever lessons I learned, I did so because of Him.