The Force: Increase Harvest

Just last week, The Feast Cebu was pruned. It was quite different from what we were accustomed to. It was and will continue to be held at Sacred Heart Center in Jakosalem St., Cebu City, a timely change in accordance with last week's talk.

We started with a mass, followed by a blessing of the venue and the congregation, presided by Rev. Fr. Brian Brigoli. The gospel was from Matthew 18:1-5,10,12-14, "Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." From the homily of Fr. Brian, "Humility is realizing the greatness in you and that greatness is Jesus."

All these changes, as explained by Bro. Buddy's talk - "Increase Harvests", were God's pruning. In John 15

:1-2, it says "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." God is our gardener. Because Jesus said, "I have come that you might have an abundant life," not simply an adequate one. But abundance comes with a price - pruning.

If you want all that God wants for you - to reap abundant harvests and to fulfill God-sized dreams, then submit yourself to God's pruning.

However, some things in your life must be sacrificed. God prunes what destroys you and what distracts you because good things can steal away your attention from the great things. There will be times when you will experience failure, sickness, retrenchment, separation; but look on the bright side, there'll be more space in your life for newer and better things. Just remember that God's focus isn't on removing but on adding because after pruning comes abundance.

Yes, pruning is painful but pruning doesn't kill you. Growth

usually happens through pain. From the letter of St. Paul to the Romans, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." Brothers and sisters, while we are going through pruning, let us not focus on the pain, let us focus on the prize!

The Force Within You

Imagine having two cars in your garage. The first is a brand-new, shiny, top-of-the-line Porsche with a monster V6 engine. The second is a decrepit, malfunctioning, smoke-belching, about-to-disintegrate Owner Jeep that was used in World War II. But as insane as this may sound, everywhere you go, you choose to drive the rusty vehicle. You never use the Porsche. The jeep conks out on you every day, it's embarrassing. You spend more time pushing it than driving it. It's so rusty, you have to get a tetanus shot. Spare parts always fall off your jeep, you always receive tickets for littering. But no matter how many problems the jeep gives you, you simply refuse to use the Porsche.

Nuts, right? But that's what we do in our life. We refuse to use God's Power!
God has given us power to accomplish His dreams for our life. The Bible says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:17).

Like that Porsche on our garage, God has given us an inner Force beyond our wildest imagination. Remember Star Wars? It was one of the first movies I watched. "May the Force be with you," Obi-wan said to Luke Skywalker. Did you notice? It's so similar to our response at Mass, "May the Lord be with you."

Star Wars is fiction. But the spiritual war is real. And "the Force" that God put in our hands is very real too. God has given you the power to move mountains (Talk 1), enlarge territories (Talk 2), multiply harvests (Talk 3), and finish strong (Talk 4).
My wish for you is that after this series, you start using God's Power in your life.

May the force be with you,

Bro. Buddy Tan

Extreme Makeover: Sanctify

The series Extreme Makeover ended with the talk - "Sanctify". Bro. Buddy Tan, our beloved Feast builder, emphasized that sanctification is about allowing God to love you. He redefined holiness from being about doing things to allowing things to happen to you, from being about working for god to allowing God to work in you, and from being about loving God to allowing God to love you.

The talk reminded the attendees that deep within each of us, we already are beautiful. We already are holy. Our only responsibility is to bring out the beauty and holiness within us.

The scripture used for the talk was from John 2:1-10, about the wedding at Cana, particularly, Jesus' miracle of changing water into wine. Bro. Buddy said that water is the symbol of our life and wine is the symbol of the Holy Spirit.

Only God can turn water into wine, our imperfect work into God's work, your inadequate love into God's love, your damaged life into God's life. Only God can make you holy.

However, there are times that people experience losing their passion for the Lord. The talk gave the following solutions for when our wine runs dry:

1. See God in the ordinary.
2. Keep praying. As you pray more, you will love God more because you will know Him more.
3. Surround yourself with holy company.

Sanctification should find its fullness in love because if we're holy but we have not love, we are nothing!